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I have two displays running on a PC running the Elementary Linux distro connected to external graphics, a GeForce GT 220. There’s a 23" inch widescreen Haier on the left connected via HDMI, and a 17" Dell on the right connected via VGA.

When I first installed the OS, the screen positions were swapped and the OS treated the Dell as if it was on the left, and the main display is set to the Dell. I was able to rearrange them using the built-in screen display settings. But was not able to change the main display where the dock and applications menu are and where new windows are opened.

I proceeded to install proprietary drivers for the GeForce GT 220, and can set the main display through the “Nvidia X Server Settings” to the Haier, the way I want it to be. This resolves the issue, but only on that user account until the account logs out. Then the main display resets to the Dell. While I am running Elementary OS, I had this same issue on Ubuntu.

I was then able to discover in the “Display” section of the “System Settings” GUI there was a black bar in the box symbolizing the display that could be dragged to set the display of my choice as the main display. This resolved the issue for one user account, and while I am able to set it individually on each account, the issue still persists on the login or boot splash screen.

How can I permanently set the display to be on the left screen on the login or boot splash screen?

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  • As for the dock and friends, have you tried simply grabbing the short edge and dragging it to the other monitor? Works in Xfce. Also in Xfce windows normally open on the screen where the mouse cursor is currently pointed (which in my opinion is the correct thing to do something like 99% of the time).
    – user
    Apr 5, 2015 at 15:00

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Reset to default
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I suspect there should be a command-line (text mode) utilityto switch the monitors with the proprietary geforce software. Maybe you could add a line to the /etc/rc.d/rc.local command file to execute that utility on startup. rc.local is executed before any graphics is started. (the actual location of the rc.local file may differ slightly on Ubuntu).

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