Hi everyone,
I’m using EOS with XFCE on my late 2008 aluminum Macbook.
I’ve recently purchased a mini-DP-to-HDMI cord to try a new setup with this beast. However, I was disappointed to see that my monitor was not recognized when I connected it to the laptop. I mean, nothing happened at all, not even the slightest feedback indicator that at least the connection was established either on the monitor or on the laptop’s screen.
Now, thankfully I have dual boot with MacOS High Sierra, and the monitor is perfectly recognized and configured there, so the cord is totally fine and so is the laptop’s mini-DP.
Could you please help me figure out what might be wrong/what needs to be configured in EOS to make the monitor work?
Just in case, I’m using nouveau drivers there, as the graphics card of this laptop is far too old to be supported by the proprietary nvidia drivers. But I’ve read on the web that nouveau supports monitors without any issues…
Anyways, I don’t even know where the issue might lie, so I would appreciate your help.
Thanks!
Could just be a bad/incompatible cable. Or the monitor input isn’t selected properly in your monitor menu (if it has multiple inputs). Have you tried that cable with a different monitor?
What output do you get with these:
xrandr --query
-or-
xdpyinfo > ~/some_new.log
If it shows two monitors and both are “connected” (but no output), then try this (which should set the monitor to its defaults):
xrandr --auto
I just recently posted an issue with monitors on Displayport. No displayport signal after boot when monitor was off
During my investigation I found that the Displayport is initialized once during boot. If no monitor is available during that time the Displayport will not have any signal. I am not sure if that is the case for all graphics adapters but it is certainly the case for many of them.
If that happens to you, you can manualy initialize the Displayport
-
xrandr --listmonitors
this lists all monitors with port name -
xrandr --output DisplayPort-1 --auto
will initialiuze the displayport again.DisplayPort-1is the port name shown by the first command.
You can try that and see if it helps.
As I have specified above, I connected the monitor successfully without any hassle whatsoever while using MacOS, so how can you possible suggest a bad cable or a misconfigured monitor settings? Like really
Thanks, I will give this a try and revert back soon
I know, sounds crazy. The only reason I suggested it was because I was having a similar problem with my external monitor thru a USB4 dock. Two docks, both work flawlessly in Windows, but only one works in Linux and the other doesn’t. It’s a weird compatibility thing. Just thought I’d mention it just in case you’re experiencing the same general wackiness. 
I am afraid that the DP socket is not even listed as one of the available connectors.
I also tried rebooting while having the monitor plugged in, but to no effect as well.
The suggested command xrandr --listmonitors lists only my laptop’s screen, and the xrandr --verbose lists only my laptop’s screen as well, without even any reference to the mini-DP connector.
Not sure what to do here…
Check out one of the solutions tried here: SDDM Triple Monitor Setup Help
When I checked my log output of xrandr at boot, the HDMI port on my dock was labeled “DisplayPort-8”, not DP-9 as in the Wayland session.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ve looked through this thread, but I’m afraid that my problem is that I don’t even see the label for my mini-DP, like it’s non-existent.
It feels, as the mbod specified above, as if this port is not even initialized and recognized during the boot, no matter whether I boot with the monitor already plugged in or not.
I talked a little with ChatGPT about this as well, but it ended up saying that my laptop’s too old and the nouveau drivers are too bad on the old laptop to pick up the monitor connection, suggesting that I should try the no longer maintained legacy nvidia drivers.
Not sure whether that’s the case or not, but I’ve got nowhere to check.