Second Display Output in Debian 8

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

I switched my lab computer to Debian 8, and it might have been a HUGE mistake!! But before I go down the distro-change way again, I wanted to try and fix the major problem if possible. The idea is if the following problem is fixable, I will learn to live with the unusable top panel behavior in Gnome Shell 3.14.

So I have two monitors attached to my setup. The main one works fine, but the second one is completely invisible to Debian! This desktop doesn't even have any fancy GPUs from AMD or NVIDIA that would lead to driver problems. Just the regular intel integrated chipset. So I am completely confused as to what the problem is. I tried configuring xrandr, and got the following output:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 1600 x 1200
default connected 1600x1200+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1600x1200       0.0* 
   1280x1024       0.0  
   1280x960        0.0  
   1024x768        0.0  
   800x600         0.0  
   640x480         0.0
2

Surely there are some Debian users in the community? :tiger:

3

Can you rule out connectivity problems?

Stretch will release tomorrow, so please upgrade.

In Stretch with an Intel iGPU (HD4000 here) you should see all unconnected ports.

E.g.: 

 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

When connected (but without power) you should see it as connected.

Please check if nomodeset is set:

grep nomodeset /etc/default/grub

And tell us what your iGPU or CPU model is.