umonitor - Update Resolutions of Monitors on Hotplugged in Linux

This guide will cover installation and basic usage of umonitor on Linux. umonitor is a dynamic monitor management written in C and distributed as a single binary package. The name dynamic monitor management means that the positions and resolutions of your screen monitors will be automatically updated whenever they are hotplugged.

We will use arch linux to install umonitor and see how to use it.

Installing umonitor

umonitor can be installed by generating a binary package from source files. For Arch Linux users, you can install umonitor from AUR using yaourt or a similar package manager.

Installing umonitor on Arch Linux

If you are running Arch Linux or any of its derivatives like Manjaro, you can easily install umonitor using AUR wrapper. Before you can use AUR, ensure the following lines is present in your

[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

Update package index and install umonitor,

$ sudo pacman -Sy
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core 145.0 KiB 780K/s 00:00        [##########################] 100%
 extra 1783.3 KiB 775K/s 00:02      [##########################] 100%
 community 4.7 MiB 659K/s 00:07     [##########################] 100%
 multilib 179.6 KiB 6.50M/s 00:00   [##########################] 100%
 archlinuxfr 11.5 KiB 0.00B/s 00:00 [##########################] 100%

Once updated, install umonitor using yaourt command line tool:

$ yaourt -S umonitor-git --noconfirm

You can confirm installed package status using:

$ pacman -Qi umonitor-git
Name : umonitor-git
Version : r161.06bff8e-1
Description : Dynamic monitor configuration
Architecture : x86_64
URL : https://github.com/rliou92/umonitor
Licenses : MIT
Groups : None
Provides : None
Depends On : libconfig libxcb
Optional Deps : None
Required By : None
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : None
Replaces : None
Installed Size : 50.00 KiB
Packager : Unknown Packager
Build Date : Sat 16 Jun 2018 11:50:47 PM EAT
Install Date : Sat 16 Jun 2018 11:50:48 PM EAT
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : Yes
Validated By : None

Installing umonitor on other Linux distributions

For other Linux distributions, you need to generate binary package from source code files. The basic dependency is cmake and git.

On Debian bases system, install git using:

$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo apt-get install gcc cmake 
$ sudo apt-get install git
$ git clone https://github.com/rliou92/umonitor.git
Cloning into 'umonitor'...
remote: Counting objects: 5017, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (29/29), done.
remote: Total 5017 (delta 32), reused 43 (delta 26), pack-reused 4962
Receiving objects: 100% (5017/5017), 11.48 MiB | 628.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2519/2519), done.

For CentOS / RHEL / Fedora:

$ sudo yum install git gcc cmake
$ sudo yum install git cmake # For Fedora
$ git clone https://github.com/rliou92/umonitor.git
Cloning into 'umonitor'...
remote: Counting objects: 5017, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (29/29), done.
remote: Total 5017 (delta 32), reused 43 (delta 26), pack-reused 4962
Receiving objects: 100% (5017/5017), 11.48 MiB | 628.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2519/2519), done.

Then generate binary package using make command:

$ cd umonitor
$ make
gcc -Wall -c src/screen.c -o obj/screen.o
gcc -Wall -c src/load.c -o obj/load.o
gcc -Wall -c src/save.c -o obj/save.o
gcc -Wall -c src/autoload.c -o obj/autoload.o
gcc -Wall -c src/umonitor.c -o obj/umonitor.o
gcc obj/screen.o obj/load.o obj/save.o obj/autoload.o obj/umonitor.o -Wall -lX11 -lxcb-randr -lxcb -lconfig -o bin/umonitor

The binary package will be placed on the directory ./bin

$ ls -1 bin 
umonitor

Make the file executable and copy the file to /usr/local/bin which is in $PATH

$ chmod +x ./bin/umonitor
$ sudo cp bin/umonitor /usr/local/bin/

Umonitor Usage

To get basic help on how to use umonitor, run the command:

$ umonitor --help
Usage: umonitor [OPTION]

Options:
-s,--save <profile_name> Saves current setup into profile_name
-d,--delete <profile_name> Removes profile_name from configuration file
-l,--load <profile_name> Loads setup from profile name
-n,--listen Daemonizes, listens for changes in the setup, and applies the new configuration automatically
-a,--autoload Load profile that matches with current configuration once
--quiet Supress program output
--help Display this help and exit
--version Output version information and exit

You can set up your monitor resolutions and positions using the standard xrandr or arandr tools. Once comfortable with the settings, save them to a profile by executing:

$ umonitor --save <profile_name>

This will save:

Monitor vendor name + model number
Crtc x and y position
Screen Resolution
Primary output
Rotation

The umonitor configuration file is stored in~/.config/umon.conf The profile can also be loaded manually using

$ umonitor --load <profile_name>

To delete saved profile, use:

$ umonitor --delete <profile_name>

If you only have a single monitor - E.g Laptop screen, you can save resolutions and screen settings to a profile using the command:

$ umonitor --save laptop
Profile home saved!

For external displays like HDMI, plugin in the device and configure it with xrandr, e.g

$ xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --pos 1600x0
$ xrandr --output eDP1 --mode 1600x900 --pos 0x0

Then save the configurations to umonitor profile:

$ umonitor --save mymon
Profile mymon saved!

Autodetecting Changes

Umonitor can do autodetection of changes, but you have to daemonize the application for this to happen. Just pass the --listen option to umonitor command.