Has Zorin OS issues with multiple monitors?
Has Zorin OS issues with multiple monitors?
Just a note -- I've seen this issue mentioned in a few Zorin OS forum topics, but every one I found had the subject closed with no solution found, so I'm turning to a different community to see if there's an answer. Currently using 17.3 Core, and I'm thinking I'll shortly upgrade to the new Zorin OS or (if this turns out to be an uncorrectable issue with Zorin, and not with the system) to replace it with a different build. I've got an old laptop (MSI GF63 Thin 9SCX-615; it's got an i5-9300H CPU, a NVidia GTX 1050Ti GPU, and 8gb of RAM) that, after its original hard drive died (a couple years ago), I turned into a Linux box with Zorin installed. It's been running fine, for the most part, though sees limited use. One thing I HOPED to do with it was to hook it up to my TV for streaming those things that my Roku won't handle. However, while it detects an HDMI connection to the TV (and yes, I've tested it on other TVs and monitors; same issue), and THINKS it's displaying on it, all I get is a black screen. Before this was turned into a Linux box, it displayed on this TV just fine (I'd only ever used it with this specific TV, but I assume if it worked on this one, it would work on others as well), so I THINK it's software related. Any suggestions for getting it to work?
I encountered a similar situation when using Zorin OS with a USB-C to HDMI adapter. The device recognized the TV, but the screen remained blank. It turned out to be a GPU routing problem. I reinstalled the NVIDIA driver and verified which GPU was active using nvidia-smi. I switched it to NVIDIA with prime-select and rebooted the system. To check the HDMI connection, I ran lspci -vnn | grep -iA12 and saw VGA output. Because your laptop has an older GPU, driver compatibility with newer Linux might be inconsistent, possibly contributing to the issue. After switching everything to NVIDIA, the external display functioned properly for me.
When the external screen remains black, try these actions: Adjust the display mode (safe to run): xrandr xrandr --output HDMI-1 — the correct port may change; the first command will show you the right one. Zorin, which runs on Ubuntu, might start in Wayland by default, and older NVIDIA cards struggle with hybrid outputs under Wayland. Switching to Xorg often resolves the issue: modify the GDM settings file, remove the WaylandEnable line, and save. These steps don’t alter firmware or risk anything — just standard GPU tweaks.
The initial recommendation seemed to resolve the issue and possibly corrected it. However, due to a family member managing the TV, I haven't been able to verify it yet.