After I bought a new monitor, the first pain point I saw with my setup was how I had to open up arandr for reconfiguration every time I plugged/unplugged the monitors.

Surely there has to be an easier way? A way where the system detects new display has been added/removed and runs some pre-configured script to set them up as I like.

Turns out autorandr is just the tool I was looking for. Simply connect all your display devices, configure them using arandr, and then save the configuration using autorandr. From then on, anytime you add/remove displays, if the connected devices match with the saved profile, that configuration will be applied.

Quick tutorial:

# Installation
sudo apt install autorandr

# View current connected devices
autorandr --fingerprint

# Configure your current connected devices using arandr
# Then save the configuration as a profile
autorandr --save some-profile-name

Some profiles I created:

• laptop: Just my laptop screen without any monitors connected to it.
• laptop-lid-up-two-monitor: My laptop with its lid open and two monitors connected.
• laptop-lid-down-two-monitor: My laptop with its lid down and two monitors connected.

This is when I faced a new problem. While autorandr can detect any external displays being plugged/unplugged with the system, it doesn’t detect lid up/down as a display plug/unplug event. So the transition from lid-up to lid-down profile doesn’t get triggered.

Like I said before, solving a problem just leads to more problems🤦‍♂️. Let’s discuss this in a follow-up post.