[solved] Thinkpad + Dockingstation + external Monitor = cant enter LUKS password

Hello Qubes Community,

What is the issue?
Thinkpad T470 with newest QubesOS docked in original Docking-Station.
Notebook closed (display “down”), dockingstation connected to external display via HDMI cable.

During boot - the Lenovo logo and the first QubesOS menu appears on extended display. Then - the extended display is changed to “extended” instead or “mirrored” - the notebook display turns on (even if down) and the LUKS password menu is only on the notebook display.
But i want it to have on the extended display.

Could you please give me some advice to solve it?

1 Like

What happens if you enter ESC twice in this state?

When i press ESC - the external screen shows the boot-log - i can enter the password. After password entry (and loading) - the user login menu appears - this time on the external screen. This “solution” works.

I would like to “solve” this issue in such a way, that the LUKS decryption menu will be shown on the external screen from the beginning - and without the need to press ESC key. If possible.

I used 4 years Debian (before this i was a Windows-User only) - so still have a lot to learn and want also to understand how to solve this.

I tried to save the GUI configuration via arandr (xrandr) - but it seems to load after the LUKS decryption happens (thus the screen is morrored after decryption). This does not help with the decryption menu at the boot.

If there is no solution at all - still ok. If there is one - i would like to learn to solve it.

xrandr doesn’t work this early indeed. Pressing ESC once will go to the text screen and pressing it again will bring back graphical prompt - this time hopefully on both screens. There is a long standing issue in plymouth about multi-screen support: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/plymouth/plymouth/-/issues/205, nobody found a working fix yet…

2 Likes

understood.
thank you very much.
Will track this issue and hope it will be solved. At the moment it is still ok to press ESC key - but not really good.