UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Hello. I am installing Kali Linux on a laptop with no monitor. The installation goes fine through the external monitor and I can see the GRUB menu on boot, but once it comes time to log in it acts like my non existant laptop screen is my main monitor to type my login info on while my external is just grey background. Moving the mouse cursor it will appear from the left hand side of the screen and I can enter the ctrl alt f3 terminal and log into root. Search engine results seemed 'xrandr' in the terminal could help me select my external monitor as the main one through terminal or boot commands. But when I type it in it says "Cannot show display" I checked the xrandr --help and tried other commands to the same effect. Wont even list displays with xrandr -q. Also built in laptop FN display commands only make the screen flash for a millisecond. Also checked BIOS for any video settings that I could change, there is nothing. I also tried logging in blind by typing passphrase, return key, also tried return, passphrase, return, no effect. I know if I can log in blind I can right click the background and select the graphics options from the shell to mirror the displays. If anyone can help me with a solution or you need any additional information please respond I would greatly appreciate it.

Let me understand better...

You are connecting your laptop to your external monitor using what port exactly?

When you turn off the laptop and reboot it attached to an external monitor what do you see. exactly?

I am using VGA port from a laptop. When the machine is turned on, the external monitor displays the GRUB boot menu listing my operating systems to boot (kali + kali advanced + windows 7). I select kali, my monitor shows some pages of code of the OS starting, screen goes black for a few seconds, then a grey background appears with nothing else. If I leave the computer for a couple minutes and let the monitor sleep, the blue kali background will be on my screen upon awaking, which I can move out of the way with the mouse.

HI, debpleb
Try to start switching to a virtual console and see the logs.

--- Post updated at 19:50 ---

In any case, I will give the procedure
press Alt+Ctrl+F1
Log in and
sudo journalctl -p err
First of all, check the ability to switch to the console

The command brought up something along the lines of

Code:

-- log begins (boot time?) log ends (current time) --
 -- no entries --

and so

Code:

journalctl -b -1 -p err

--- Post updated at 12:33 ---

In order not to read too much in your case, it probably will do:
journalctl -b -1 -p emerg or journalctl -b -1 -p 0 which is equivalent to
Error level code from 0 to 7

This sounds like your laptop is treating the external monitor as a secondary display and the (non-existing?) internal display as first. Perhaps the laptop has an internal graphics adapter and it treats the internal display as first, the external as second.

Usually laptops have some "function key" to switch that behavior. If you could tell us the exact making of your laptop somebody might even know how to do it.

I hope this helps.

bakunin