I have a laptop and an external monitor and i was wondering if there was a simple approach to switching between multiple monitor configurations based on the detected available displays.

For example:

• When i am at home and i plug in my external monitor i would like this to automatically become enabled and the laptop screen to become disabled.

• As soon as i pull out the display cable for the external monitor, i would like the laptop screen to automatically become enabled.

I was expecting this to just "work" just like it does in windows - but it seems to be much harder than that.

I am aware of the xrandr command to turn displays on and off but i cannot seem to find a way to get this to work the way i describe above.

I had also found this post about switching between multiple monitor configurations and the results seem a bit inconclusive. However i was hoping that with xrandr there would be a simpler solution.

For me, the fact that when i pull out my external monitor the screen just goes black and i get an error message is a big issue holding me back from making the complete switch to linux as i move around alot as a student.

My OS of choice is currently Kubuntu 12.04 but i am willing to change to something else if it provides a better way of setting up the described setup.