dual monitor tutorial linux

[jeffd]

the people over at gentoo have a tutorial on how to setup dual monitors. That link points to the nvidia stuff.

There's a good debian dual monitor tutorial from Paul Hahn. That one includes a good sample configuration file, not for xorg [it's the XF86Config version] , but it's probably about the same.

Nvidia twinview setup at gmpf.

And this one from aufrecht.org

There's a site where you can get the relevant portion of your xorg.conf file created, here. The page has good information about each component, it works.

Here's an Nvidia forum thread on some issues you might have, especially the dreaded 50 hz refresh rate bug.

[vkaryl]

Great! Thanks. Now all I have to do is find time to do something with all of this....

*sigh* Don't ask.... just.... next time I think I want to change hosts, SHOOT ME, okay?

[jeffd]

That's why this site is hosted on pair networks. I am forced to host elsewhere at unpleasantly frequent intervals by client demand/requests, I warn them about backend issues, uptime, tech support competence, but they insist. So we move the site from hoster to hoster as each fails in at least one, usually more, of each area. Sigh. Meanwhile all the sites on pair chug along, always up, always running, no problems.

[vkaryl]

Yeah. Well I'm not leaving below10 again for a while. If the money starts rolling along, I will eventually move to either pair or textdrive I think.

[jeffd]

Well, I'm happy to report that setting up dual monitors in kde is very easy. I just grabbed a piece of the x config file from that site I listed in the first posting, pasted it into my xorg.conf file, played around with the dual monitor options a bit to see what they would do, and it all works fine.

Actually, it works quite a bit better than in Windows 2000 SP 4.

I won't mention the big headache I had trying to get both monitors displaying correctly, it took me almost a whole day to realize that I needed to reflash the nvidia geforce 6200 video card bios to fix the dvi-i to avg sub adaptor gllitch I was seeing. That problem wasn't related to an operating system though, it was hardware. Once I flashed the bios with the latest version, it worked perfectly.

So the answer is, yes, it's fairly easy to setup dual monitors on kde. I'd say it's actually easier than in windows to be honest, and the support for configuring each monitor is better. There are also some interesting options, x can run both monitors totally separately too I gather, with different resolutions etc. But I'm going for the same on both, since it's pretty much the same monitor on both sides.

Here's a sample xorg.conf file section:

:: Code ::

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
# sw_cursor is needed for some ati and radeon cards
        #Option     "sw_cursor"
        #Option     "hw_cursor"
        #Option     "NoAccel"
        #Option     "ShowCache"
        #Option     "ShadowFB"
        #Option     "UseFBDev"
        #Option     "Rotate"
        Identifier  "Card0"
# The following line is auto-generated by KNOPPIX mkxf86config
        Driver      "nvidia"
        Option      "RenderAccel"       "1"
        Option      "AllowGLXWithComposite"     "1"
        Option      "RandRRotation"     "1"
        Option      "IgnoreDisplayDevices"      "TV"
        Option      "Coolbits"  "1"
        VendorName  "All"
        BoardName   "All"
#       BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
#       Driver "nvidia"
#       Option "NvAGP" "3"
        Option "DigitalVibrance" "0"
        Option "TransparentIndex" "0"
        Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "64"
        Option "CursorShadowXOffse" "4"
        Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "2"
        Option "Twinview" "TRUE"
        Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
        Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-81"
        Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "56-75"
        Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024 , 1280x1024"
        Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT , CRT"
EndSection