How to rotate your screen in Linux

This blog entry show you how to use pivot or portre mode on your LCD monitor under Linux. I know the way that NVidia card owners can rotate their screen. You have to use official NVidia driver for this method.

Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with following command:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Original options:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Modified options look like this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    Option "RandRRotation" "true"
    Option "Rotate" "left"
EndSection

I've added two lines the NVidia Device section. Now you have to restart your x server (or reboot your computer) and rotate your monitor.

Rotate when you want

Screen rotation settings would have appeard in NVIDIA X Server Settings program if I hadn't written in last option to Xorg.conf. This Program is available at Gnome from System -> Administration -> NVIDIA X Server Settings. In this case you can change the orientation when you want, but standard orientation stay.

Your options would look like this in this case:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    Option "RandRRotation" "true"
EndSection