Hi Richard!
First of all, sorry, no pictures.
An easy solution, without trying to achieve what you want on a low
level, is to use a screen magnifier such as xzoom.
1. Install the package "xzoom" (sudo apt-get install xzoom) or use the
package manager of your choice.
2. Open mate-display-properties.
3. Select your external monitor, uncheck "Same image in all monitors"
4. Click and drag your external monitor (light green box in the visual
representation for me) to the side of your laptop display (light red).
5. Check if the resolution is correct (choose highest possible for LCD,
for CRT try different ones until it looks good to you)
6. Click Apply, then Keep Settings.
7. Close mate-display-properties, open xzoom (press Alt+F2, enter
"xzoom" without quotes, hit enter key)
8. Drag the xzoom window to your external monitor, double click the
title bar to maximize it.
9. Click inside the xzoom window and drag the mouse to the area you want
to enlarge on your laptop screen.
10. Done
Best,
Julian
From the xzoom man page:
COMMANDS
Once xzoom has started the user can enter simple commands using the
keyboard.
q quit.
+ increase magnification value by 1.
- decrease magnification value by 1.
w next + or - command only affect X magnification.
h next + or - command only affect Y magnification.
x mirror the display image horizontally.
y mirror the display image vertically.
z rotate the displayed image 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
arrow keys
scroll the zoomed area 1 pixel in the direction of the arrow. if
the control key is pressed the zoomed area will scroll 10 pixels.
d sets the delay between frame updates. Built-in delays are 200,
100, 50, 10 and 0 ms.
g toggle grid on and off.
Mouse buttons
To set the location of the magnified are click the left mouse but‐
ton inside xzoom's window and then move it (keep the button
pressed) to the place which you want to see magnified.
Xzoom allow you to resize it's window at any time.
When xzoom is iconified it simply waits to get deiconified.
