Set External Monitor as Default in Debian Console

I have a copy of debian running on a busted ThinkPad without an internal monitor.  It would be nice if the command line didn't revert to a 640x480 resolution on the external.  Solution: completely disable the internal monitor, so linux auto-sets the monitor resolution according to the specs of the external monitor. src.

Find the name of your monitors.  My internal card is an intel, so I can look in /sys for the EDID file (which has the EDID name, which is what we want).  src.

find /sys -name edid

Based on the output of that command, the name of my internal display is

LVDS-1

With that information, I'm going into GRUB and disabling the display.  Note it will not work at all after this, unless you change the setting back. 

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

edit the line from

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

(or whatever it was to begin with) to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet video=LVDS-1:d"

Keep whatever settings were already there.  Update GRUB, and reboot the computer.  

sudo update-grub
reboot

My External Display Won't Play Ball

Notes for next time I have to set up my external monitor.  This is for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

I have an Acer VGA monitor, resolution 1600 x 900.  The last time I reinstalled Mint, the resolution wasn't detected.  Mint 17 couldn't do it, Ubuntu 16.04 couldn't do it; Windows 8.1 worked almost flawlessly (almost, because some of my attempts to fix the problem messed up the display on the windows side).  

This was fixed a while ago, but I'm making a record of the solution.  I created a small file called set-screen.sh, put it in my home directory, and added it to my startup programs.  It would automatically reset the resolution of my external monitor.  Hackish, but it worked.  

#!/bin/sh
sleep 7

xrandr --newmode "1600x900_60.00"  118.25  1600 1696 1856 2112  900 903 908 934 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1600x900_60.00
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1600x900_60.00

The sleep 7 command ensured that my computer had a chance to turn on completely and actually detect the external monitor before running the command to modify the display.  I have a pretty fast computer; the recommended sleep time was actually 15 seconds.