From: Simon Strandgaard <neoneye@...>
Date: 2004-03-25T23:14:29+09:00
Subject: Re: Detecting hardware with Ruby

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 22:57:06 +0900, Jamis Buck wrote:
> Here's a rather off-the-wall question: how would I go about detecting 
> the presence of external hardware in Ruby? Specifically, sometimes my 
> laptop is attached to an external monitor, and sometimes it isn't. Just 
> before X starts, I'd like to have a Ruby script that runs and checks to 
> see if the monitor is present, and if it isn't, chooses a different 
> server layout from the XF86Config file.
> 


This should be possible with the DDC protocol
http://www.vesa.org/summary/sumvbeddc11.htm

It requires that the driver supports DDC, which I think most
drivers in XFree86 does.  

I don't believe XFree86 will allow you to use DDC without switching to
graphics mode first. Then you can detect if a display is present, and then
you can switch back to good old 80x50 text mode.

I have only tried tweaking XFree86 a little bit, and have absolutely no
idea where go from here.

--
Simon Strandgaard