Hardware support in Linux, specifically Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) for the Dell XPS M1530 and M1330 is very impressive. However in certain cases the process is not as straight forward as it could be, and it takes a bit of tinkering in order to get it to work. In this article I will go through how to enable audio and video through the HDMI output.
The first step is making sure that the HDMI cable is connected between the computer and external monitor, HDTV, etc.
Video Support
To enable the video you need to go to your NVIDIA X Server Settings manager. This of course assumes you are using the NVIDIA driver on your system.
System -> Administration -> NVIDIA X Server Settings
Select the X Server Display Configuration. Click the Detect Displays button and you external monitor should be displayed. Click on the external screen so that it becomes selected and click the Configure button and select the TwinView option.
Once this monitor is enabled a Position dropdown box should appear. It is best in most cases to select Clones.The screen output will be duplicated on both devices.
Select the Apply button for these changes to take effect.
If your external monitor has a lower resolution than your laptop screen it may help to disable the laptop screen so that maximized video won’t go beyond the borders of your external monitor. To do this click the laptop screen so that it becomes selected, click the Configure button, and select Disabled.
Audio Support
Open the Volume Control manager, usually ou can click on the volume applet on the top GNOME panel.
Make sure your device is set to HDA Intel (Alsa Mixer).
Select the Switches tab and put a check mark next to IEC958. Selecting this enables audio output over the HDMI connection.
If you want to disable audio output through your laptop speakers you can disable them. Go back to the Playback tab and mute the Front channel.
Bugs
1) Enabling the laptop screen as well an external monitor through HDMI can cause X to freeze with certain Compiz-Fusion effects such as desktop switching. Disabling Compiz-Fusion or disabling the laptop screen while operating in this mode fixes this issue.
2) Disabling the laptop monitor will not correctly resize the GNOME desktop to match the resolution of the external monitor over HDMI. However video playback will still be correctly maximized.
3) Audio output over HDMI connection may not work for a specific program even if everything has been configured correctly. Restarting this program usually fixes this issue.