Description of problem:

I have a dual-head system (laptop screen plus external LCD panel stacked vertically above it) and two panels. Initially these were at the top and bottom of the laptop screen. When I added the external LCD and tried to reposition the panels to take account of the new configuration, I found:

1) A panel could no longer be positioned at the bottom of the laptop screen. Dragging it to the bottom causes it to repeatedly flicker at the bottom position, then when
the mouse is released, it jumps back to its former position. Similarly,
positioning it at the top of the laptop screen then using its menu to change orientation from 'top' to 'bottom': after a second the selection changes back to 'top' of its own accord.

2) The panel at the top of the laptop screen (the one at slightly under half the height of the full virtual screen) doesn't provide a 'barrier' to the
positioning of newly opened windows. ie in the former single-screen
arrangement, the top of newly-opened windows would always be just below
the top panel, so they don't overlap with the panel. In the dual-head setup, windows which
open in the bottom screen have their top at the top of the screen,
*under* the panel. This means you can't do anything with the window until
you've ctl-dragged it down a bit, which is intensely annoying (!).

3) This bit is vague and not reproducible, so this is more of a throwaway comment, but
generally while playing with panels while trying to get all this set up, they seemed to exhibit bizarre behaviour. Sometimes two panels would lie on top of each other; sometimes they would stack one directly below the other. And other such stuff which I can't recall now, but I came away with a general feeling of brokenness.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

gnome-panel-2.24.3-1.fc10.i386

How reproducible:

see above

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

I've read on t'internet
(http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2#Note_for_Gnome_users)
that my laptop's setup (with an intel 945GM) is a bit
usual in that the external screen becomes the 'primary' screen and that
adversely affects things like panel layout. I don't know the validity of
that claim.

Anyway, here's the xrandr output:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1440 x 1800, maximum 1440 x 1800
VGA connected 1440x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 408mm x 255mm
   1440x900       59.9*+   75.0     59.9* 
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     75.0     66.7     59.9  
   720x400        70.1  
LVDS connected 1440x900+0+900 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 300mm x 190mm
   1440x900       60.0*+
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3  
   640x480        59.9  
TV disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)