Change Display Orientation from Terminal – How to Guide

displaysystem-settingsxrandr

I am starting to work with 2 displays on Ubuntu. One of them is rotateable, so I can use it easily in both landscape and portrait mode. But I world prefer to have ability to change orientation setting (which could be found in System Settings->Desktop) from terminal or script on one display but don't rotate other one.

I am pretty sure it is possible via xrandr!

Best Answer

Strange, but I found answer first!

You use

$ xrandr --output $monitorName --rotate $direction

where $monitorName can be found in output of

$ xrandr

and $direction is left for counter-clockwise or right for clockwise.

Edit: Using grep, it is possible to write a script like this:

#!/bin/bash

screen="HDMI1"

descr=$(xrandr | grep "$screen")
if echo "$descr" | grep disconnected
then
        echo "No $screen connected"
        exit 1
fi

alt="left"
if echo "$descr" | grep --quiet -P "^[^(]*$alt"
then
        rotate="normal"
else
        rotate="$alt"
fi
xrandr --output $screen --rotate $rotate

which actually switches orientation of monitor storaged in $screen variable, and $alt is the alternative orientation.

Related Question