I’m desperate to get a Linux question answered. I have Red Hat Linux running on a laptop, and I want to use an external monitor with that laptop. When I boot up the laptop with the monitor plugged in, everything works fine in console mode. However, the X absolutely refuses to use the standalone display. Xconfigurator correctly surmises that there is a monitor there, and even identifies the monitor correctly. Unfortunately, it won’t actually display anything on it. In fact, it refuses to send a signal to the monitor at all. I’ve Googled the issue but have come up with nada. Surely there must be a way to get things up and running properly, but I have no idea what it is. Anyone know how to get a Linux laptop and an external display to play nicely together? (As far as I’m concerned, you can file this under things that ought to just work.)

Addendum: this person had the same problem I do last fall (using the same computer no less), and didn’t get a response. Here’s another.