[sf-lug] Display login Screen On External Monitor

[Michael Paoli]

My comments, and such, further below:

On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 10:39 AM Ken Shaffer <kenshaffer80 at gmail.com> wrote:
> My MSI GP66 laptop screen died awhile back, but since I use an external monitor, it was more of a nuisance. Can't see the firmware settings, grub screen, or login screen, but for login, I have been able to blindly type in the proper keys.

Try powering it on with external monitor(s) connected and laptop lid
closed (if power one has to open laptop lid to power it on, just close
as soon after powering on as feasible, notably well before it
completes POST).  For many laptop, if one does that, then even
BIOS/test/boot screens and the like are then seen on external monitor.
This doesn't work for all laptop, but, e.g. it does work for my Dell
(alas, last year, the 2nd of the 2 lid/screen hinges failed, so, alas,
with that, wasn't long 'till the screen managed to get broken).  Well,
have been limping along since, but works reasonably with external
monitor ... and can even get to setup screens and the like - just
close lid quite shortly after powering up.

Oh, and you may need adjust settings so your laptop doesn't got to
sleep or hibernate or the like when you close the lid, so ...
clamshell mode.  Uhm, but if you still want to use the keyboard or
pointing device that would be under closed lid, may want that open ...
but can open it later and, e.g. (re)configure X so it doesn't use the
broken display.  The basic non-X / non-Wayland stuff, and perhaps all
distros, seems to default to all displays, in approximately mirrored
manner.  But X may default to all, but each as extensions of same
desktop/display, not mirrored, and not sure about Wayland, but it may
do or default to same.

> The instructions for getting the login to the external screen are pretty straightforward (set up a single screen, then copy your .config/monitors.xml file to ~gdm/.config (provided you use gdm), and that worked on another laptop, but not the MSI.  Turns out, that simply creating the /etc/X11/xorg.conf  file was all that was needed (easy from the nvidia-settings).  No edits were necessary, just the presence of the pretty basic config file with the defaults it was already using when no file is present.

If you're using X, you can disable the broken screen at the X level,
then it works for anything using X (e.g. not limited to gdm, etc.)

> I suppose the grub screen is the next project.  I did get the instructions, but they didn't work for me, so maybe just some tweak like the login screen is needed.

Keep it simple?  First try with lid closed - even if you reconfigure
GRUB to use external screen, that won't help you for, e.g. accessing
and reconfiguring setup/BIOS screens.

GRUB can also do serial, but more modern hardware, and especially
laptops, typically doesn't have classic serial port ... and too, then
who has a serial terminal (or emulation thereof) connected to the
serial port?  USB to serial adapter might possibly work, but GRUB
would need support that, otherwise that's a no-go ... and I don't know
if GRUB has such support even at all.