[clug] Monitors that swivel

[Hal Ashburner]

Lana Brindley wrote:
> 2009/6/4 Andrew Janke <a.janke at gmail.com>
>
>   
>>> Not a long shot at all.  generally it is just a case of adding:
>>>
>>>   Option "RandRRotation" "True"
>>>
>>> In the Device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
>>>
>>> Or in Ubuntu there is a checkbox (dependant on driver) for rotation
>>> under System->Preferences->Display.
>>>       
>> PS: there is anecdotal evidence (forum posts) to suggest that this has
>> worked "out of the box" since Ubuntu 8.04 (or the Debian equivalent),
>> but got broken somewhat in Intrepid. I didn't find this to be the case
>> but then I run the ATI driver not fglrx.  (and soon back to nvidia! --
>> the ASUS N51vf arrives tomorrow! yay!)
>>
>>     
>
>
> Oh yay! I thought I was the only one who would actually want this feature!
> Excellent news that it more it more less Just Works. At least there's a
> reasonably good chance that once I ditch RHEL5 I should be able to just
> install $DISTRO_OF_CHOICE without too many problems. Stand by for more
> questions to the list once I take delivery ;)
>
> Thanks, you guys rock.
>
>   
The monitor itself is irrelevant here, this is dependant on your 
videocard and its drivers.
I know someone who drove their monitor via the framebuffer xorg plugin 
(which is painfully slow in 2D) so he could rotate it.
Any videocard that supports randr will work without having to go near 
the xorg.conf
By the looks of things here you're out of luck with recent nvidia binary 
drivers. But with deep configure-fu you might get it to go, failing all 
else using fbdev.
radeon driver for an old 7500 mobility works great.
Anything intel /should/ work great.
I suspect anything ATI will actually work with randr as well but that's 
prejudice based on too many beers with the driver author years ago so 
take it with salt to taste. ;)

The monitor itself shouldn't matter as far as I can tell. Maybe it did 
back in the days of CRTs and scan lines but I don't know what I'm 
talking about there even more than normal.
And of course rotating a monitor is a function of the qualities of the 
stand that it uses. LCD monitors all seem to have a standard connector 
to its stand (there seems to be only 2 standards to choose from and they 
seem to be able to make stands tha work with both, yay) so if you want 
to rotate monitors, you can just grab a new stand rather than a whole 
new felangidgang.

Hal