| External monitor resolution on Os X |
The Macintosh users always seem so much better than other OS users for answering dumb questions here, so I have high hopes...
Basically the only thing I need a Mac for these days is doing copy and technical edits on book chapters. The revision control and change tracking in OpenOffice is unfortunately not quite there yet, so it's not possible on Linux. However, I just got the heebies with Catherine's tiny 1024x768 internal LCD on her 12 inch ibook, and tried to plug in my spare LCD monitor.
Now the display is automatically mirrored, which is nice, but it's at 1024x768 on the external monitor as well. This sucks because the monitor is a LCD and only properly displays at 1280x1024. Some quick surfing seems to imply that this is standard behaviour on Os X, which sucks.
So, does anyone have a quick fix which wont destroy Catherine's machine? I don't mind running the external monitor with fewer colours, or not in mirrored mode if that helps. It just seems to me that the display control panel is surprisingly lacking in options.
posted at: 12:56 | path: /macintosh/osx | permanent link to this entry
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#3
OpenSpecies
Hi, mikal
- the second screen takes automaticcaly the best depth/resolution from the first screen
- disabled the first default screen ( integrated LCD )
- the integrated grafic card will support your second screen depth/resolution ?
-plum
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#4
Stephen
It's a software limitation.
You can turn it off by editing one variable in OpenFirmware. There's a nice little tool to do it for you here: http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html
Once you've done that, you'll have as good support for extended desktops as any Mac OS machine. You can control it from System Preferences > Displays.
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#5
rillian
IIRC this is a software limitation, not a hardware one, so you should be able to find a firmware hack to enable dual screen output. The mirror-only thing was to provide extra differentiation between the ibook and powerbook product lines.
FWIW.
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#6
Kenneth
DisplayconfigX will solve the resolution problem.
Make sure though that you use the toll that Stephen mentions above first.