[SOLVED] unable to display to VGA monitor with Debian 9

[extraspecialbitter]

My default setup is still Debian 8, but I thought I'd test-drive a Debian 9 ISO on a spare partition. It works fine with my Dell laptop's default display, but when trying to view on a VGA monitor attached to the laptop's docking station, I get the login screen, am able to log in to the initial desktop, see the backsplash and status bar, but then am unable to view any applications launched from the menu. A "ps" shows that the applications are actually running, but I'm unable to see them. About the only thing I'm able to do - besides bringing up a console - is logout or reboot. This also happens with the Live ISO.

[extraspecialbitter]

A little digging into Xorg.0.log indicates that the virtual display for my VGA monitor is being moved to the right of the laptop display, rendering it invisible.

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[     7.692] (II) modeset(0): Output eDP-1 using initial mode 1280x800 +0+0
[     7.692] (II) modeset(0): Output VGA-1 using initial mode 1920x1080 +1280+0

Is there some way to remedy this after the fact, if I can't avoid it proactively?

[bw123]

if you have a desktop environment with a gui tool it probably best to use that. Otherwise try xrandr, it's a swiis army knife and nobody knows how many ways you can use it to skin a cat.

[extraspecialbitter]

Giving credit where credit is due, I found this on the Ubuntu forum.

From the console, I typed the following:

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DISPLAY=:0 xrandr --output VGA-1 --primary

No error message, so I exited the console and typed <ctrl><alt><F7> to bring me back to the display, at which point I was able to see the output of my commands as expected.