Comments on: Dual Monitors In Ubuntu (xorg.conf driver; ATI card)

By: Nik

Nik — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:24:16 +0000

Wonderful! It just works!
I have Ubuntu 7.10 installed on LG LW40 Express laptop with ATI Radeon X600.

By: enconnast

enconnast — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:32:41 +0000

Very nice!!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:08:42 +0000

Hi, I have the same card and I was wondering how to set it up to use the S-Video output so I can use Elisa Media Center on my TV. Should I add the device “2 ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE)”?

By: LAN

LAN — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:35:22 +0000

Description: Ubuntu 7.04
Release: 7.04
Codename: feisty
-DELL Latitude | D810
-ATI Technologies, Inc. M24 1P [Radeon Mobility X600
-DELL Monitor
_________________________
Laptop is Docked:
Thanks. Works for me. Have not upgraded OS yet. Beryl/Compiz do not work. Also as mentioned by HobbyLobby, dragging an app/screen to the other monitor doesn’t work.
Thanks alot though.

By: Jonathan Birge » Blog Archive » Why Linux may fail on the desktop

Jonathan Birge » Blog Archive » Why Linux may fail on the desktop — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:29:23 +0000

[...] When you’ve got labor divided as finely as it is in the Linux community, the general modus operandi tends to be patching and mods. However, there is only so much that can be done with X11. I think people are so impressed with what has been done with the 20 year old graphics system, that they forget to be embarrassed that you can’t even make trivial changes to the graphics configuration without requiring a restart of the X server. If you want proof of this, look no further than the 50+ pages of discussion on the Ubuntu forums on how to get dual monitors working. [...]

By: seaplanebase

seaplanebase — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:04:44 +0000

Now this is the part that seems to be messing people up:
the first line of xrandr is:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1400 x 1050, maximum 1600 x 1200

At least on my system.

Which means you have to subtract the resolution of the screen you want to use from the maximum. If you exceed the “virtual size” yes it will fail to load but you can’t say that it didn’t boot it just means that you can’t see what’s going on. Discovered by repeatedly hitting my Fn F8 key until the screen did pop on one of my displays.

Once this sunk in I was able to use the gui to set the resolution and have it work, now it find out if I can put the virtual resolution to accommodate the screen placement I want to use or if I can use some overlay sort of thing like “win” drivers use.

By: Jeong-hoon Lee

Jeong-hoon Lee — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:51:05 +0000

First of all, Thanks a lot.
Your blog really helped me!!!

Let me share what I tried.
When I installed Ubuntu Gutsy,
My xorg.conf secion was like this:

———-
Section “Device”
Identifier “ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP]”
Driver “fglrx”
Busid “PCI:1:5:0″
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Generic Monitor”
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP]”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Modes “1280×800″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
screen “Default Screen”
Inputdevice “Generic Keyboard”
Inputdevice “Configured Mouse”

Then when I tried the Screen and Graphics.. I got the low resoultion..
Somehow, I looked at the xorg.conf at that time..
and I found out it changed the setting of the first Default screen as well as added second monitor’s information
with modes and gamma
And as you know ubuntu usually recognize most of monitors correctly..
So I used the Screen and Graphics again,
Select Plug’n'play for both monitors..
it added new screen section and monitor section.
and virtual size was set to 640 480
So I changed all settings to default settings
like this:

———-
Section “Device”
Identifier “ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP]”
Boardname “ati”
Busid “PCI:1:5:0″
Driver “fglrx”
Screen 0
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Generic Monitor”
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP]”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Virtual 2304 800
Modes “1280×800″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
screen 0 “Default Screen” 0 0
screen 1 “screen1″ rightof “Default Screen”
Inputdevice “Generic Keyboard”
Inputdevice “Configured Mouse”

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice “stylus” “SendCoreEvents”
# InputDevice “cursor” “SendCoreEvents”
# InputDevice “eraser” “SendCoreEvents”
Inputdevice “Synaptics Touchpad”
EndSection
Section “Module”
Load “glx”
Load “dbe”
Load “v4l”
EndSection
Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “0″
EndSection
Section “device” #
Identifier “device1″
Boardname “ati”
Busid “PCI:1:5:0″
Driver “fglrx”
Screen 1
EndSection
Section “screen” #
Identifier “screen1″
Device “device1″
Defaultdepth 24
Monitor “monitor1″
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024×768″
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section “monitor” #
Identifier “monitor1″
Option “DPMS”
EndSection
#Section “ServerFlags”
# Option “Xinerama” “true”
#EndSection
———-

I changed Modes for both monitors as the resolution I want to use..
and set the Virtual correctly
and I followed your recommendation for Xinerama.
And it just works fine now…

Thanks a lot again.
I’m from Korea, so please forgive me about my poor English.

By: ken

ken — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:58:00 +0000

Dual monitors in GG.
I gave up with ATI and plugged in an ancient Matrox G450. One minute later it worked. Did it all in screens n graphics, no xorg no command line, magic. Drags windows across, main monitor 1600, small 1024.

By: Ubuntu: Gutsy Gibbon Dual Head Monitors Working! « Hobby Lobby

Ubuntu: Gutsy Gibbon Dual Head Monitors Working! « Hobby Lobby — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 01:21:43 +0000

[...] Gutsy Gibbon Dual Head Monitors Working! After my last attempt being somewhat less than desirable, I decided to give Gutsy Gibbon another chance. This time, [...]

By: hobbylobby

hobbylobby — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:48:24 +0000

When I upgrade to Gutsy,
should I try to get xrandr
working rather than fglrx?

Has anyone had any luck with
the GUI method for setting up
dual monitors in Gutsy?

By: Koziasty

Koziasty — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:36:13 +0000

Hi guys. I have been trying to get my TV to work as a second monitor, so that i would be able to watch films on it.

It is possible, when you are using a radeon driver (NOT fglrx) to use xrandr. If you are lucky enough, the only thing you may need to add to your xorg.conf is what Mike OConnor has written in the comment above.

However, it doesn’t work with fglrx, which is a shame, because i struggle to watch anything on the TV (fglrx has superior avi-playback quality to radeon drivers, sad, but true).

Thanks to your howto, i managed to get the TV working, but it does not support its native resolution… Have to work around it some more. THanks!

By: hobbylobby

hobbylobby — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:57:48 +0000

every time I included Xinerama in my xorg.conf file x windows failed to load and I had to use the rescue cd to repair xorg.conf before I could boot.

which vid card do you have Martin – and what driver are you using?
laptop or desk? me=laptop.

By: martin

martin — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:18:47 +0000

add to former posting:
for Xinerama

By: martin

martin — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:16:35 +0000

Not that this solves the problem.
But looks like the ATI support is not anymore.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon/ReleaseNotes

regards Martin (also still trying and puzzling)

By: hobbylobby

hobbylobby — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:20:22 +0000

Hey Mike and Keith,

Are you able to move apps and/or windows between your two monitors?

I can’t and that’s a huge con in my mind. dual monitors should be dynamic enough to let me move around them – not be confined by them.

I’ll have to check in to your suggestions // especially if you can move things across monitor.

Thanks for posting!