Ubuntu – How to make the external monitor a separate workspace

So, as implemented in KDE And Gnome, this is beyond "not easy" - it's darn near impossible. Here's why: the virtual workspaces are implemented in widgets that run in the window manager. They're implemented with trickery and magic and bound entirely to one window manager running on one DISPLAY.

The window manager, virtual-workspace-management widgets, and client applications all run on the same DISPLAY (as in the $DISPLAY environment variable; typically :0.0) Your second monitor, in non-twinview-mode, is actually running on a separate DISPLAY - probably :0.1 You can verify this by running 'echo $DISPLAY' from a shell prompt in a terminal program on each monitor.

Each DISPLAY is running its own X-server. So, they have no idea about each other's windows, windowmanagers, or virtual workspaces.

I would bet the various tiling windowmanagers will want you to have your monitor in twinview mode. Then they can carefully work with the real-estate that's in one and in the other, in the same DISPLAY... and fake you into thinking they're two separate "workspaces" (same word but not same meaning as virtual workspaces).

There are numerous X-window issues that would make it quite difficult to move or migrate a running Xwindow client program from one DISPLAY to another seamlessly. Not saying it can't be done; it may have been done... but I'll bet it's buggy or at least limited; I doubt you could move a firefox window playing a video between DISPLAYs, for example.

Hope this helps! -pbr

You can try setting your resolution to the desired level manually.

First, run this command, changing the example 1920x1080 resolution to the resolution you want:

cvt 1920 1080

That will spew out something like this:

# 1920x1080 59.96 Hz (CVT 2.07M9) hsync: 67.16 kHz; pclk: 173.00 MHz
Modeline "1920x1080_60.00"  173.00  1920 2048 2248 2576  1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync

We're only interested in the chunk after the quotes and before the -hsync, e.g.

173.00  1920 2048 2248 2576  1080 1083 1088 1120

Use that in the next command to add a graphics mode:

xrandr --newmode clever_name 173.00  1920 2048 2248 2576  1080 1083 1088 1120

Now, add your new mode to your VGA output:

xrandr --addmode VGA1 clever_name

Finally, switch your VGA monitor to use it:

xrandr --output VGA1 --mode clever_name

Now that that works, you can make it take effect every time you log in. To do so, create the following files somewhere:

fix-resolution.sh with what is called a shebang line and then the last three commands you ran that got it working before, e.g.:

#!/bin/sh
xrandr --newmode clever_name 173.00  1920 2048 2248 2576  1080 1083 1088 1120
xrandr --addmode VGA1 clever_name
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode clever_name

fix-resolution.desktop with the following contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=fix resolution
Exec=/usr/bin/local/fix-resolution.sh

Now, copy the files to the appropriate places on your hard drive and make the script executable. From a terminal:

cp fix-resolution.sh /usr/local/bin
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fix-resolution.sh
cp fix-resolution.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart

This will run the commands that force your monitor to the proper resolution every time someone logs into your computer.