ATI dual head monitors in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
October 20, 2007
[update]
on 12.15.2007 I updated to Gutsy Gibbon and have dual monitors working!
[/update]
I hoped that all my past problems with dual monitors and the lack of support for ATI graphic cards in Feisty Fawn would now be officially solved with the new release of Ubuntu’s 10.18.2007 installment of Gutsy Gibbon.
They weren’t.
I still had to download the ATI driver and install it.
I had to use my old xorg.conf file. (and that was always confusing since gutsy gibbon something (maybe the ATI driver ? … maybe the Screen and Graphics util?) was overwriting it and making changes on the fly… which invariably made things worse each time.)
Using the new System>Administration>Screens And Graphics GUI did not solve the problem.
In fact, in many ways, it made things worse. It wasn’t until after I installed the ATI driver that the Screens And Graphics showed the correct settings.
Actually, “correct settings” is a bit confusing since I know that I selected the appropriate monitor profile for the secondary monitor – Samsung / 206 BW (analog) 1680×1050 — but the current (auto-set) profile is set to Plug And Play Monitor 1680×1050.
I’m guessing that Ubuntu is getting that setting from the xorg.conf file… but I really don’t know what happened or how it worked out.
I did have a few moments of good fortune where gutsy found and used the settings in my xorg.conf file, but that was always short lived. The very next time I booted, Ubuntu would force me to run in reduced graphics mode.
Now … Why, Why doesn’t my Logitech MX Revolution Mouse work anymore??? Feisty Fawn didn’t give me any problems with my mouse.
[Update: feisty fawn no longer recognizes my mouse. something else is wrong with the mouse itself, so I can't blame it on gutsy gibbon.]
October 24, 2007 at 3:56 am
not that it helps at all, but you aren’t the only one having trouble with this.
In the alpha (tribe 1.. back in April or May) of Gutsy Gibbon I had the external display working on my ATI Radeon 9600 equipped thinkpad, but of course now it has all gone to hell.
I’m going to have to spend some time looking over that xorg.conf you posted to see if I can use any of it. I don’t use the proprietary ATI driver at all (even though graphics/UI performance are far better with it) because of how notoriously bad it is dealing with suspend/hibernate, but if I have to, so be it.
I have to make a presentation using my ThinkPad on thursday.. so by then I’ll have to figure something else out, or else I’ll have to take one of my dell laptops bah!
This is a major thing that I think needs to be made a lot better with xorg. With all of the more advanced things I have working just fine, one would think a second monitor would be easy! Getting the fingerprint reader and gyroscopic hard drive protection system working –much easier!
October 24, 2007 at 11:53 am
I hadn’t heard about the link between hibernate/suspend not working and the fglrx(?) ATI driver.
I’ve been frustrated about that since day 1 of my introduction to Ubuntu (not too long ago). But it’s a serious pain.
What driver are you using that allows for hibernation?
November 15, 2007 at 9:10 am
Well it took me many hours of solid ‘tinkering’ and don’t ask me how I did it, but I do have dual monitors working reasonably well (admittedly using the proprietary ATI drivers)
if it helps this was what I ended up with:
Monitor one in Widescreen ( 1440 x 900 )
Monitor two in normal dimensions ( 12890 x 1024 )
xorg.conf
*************************
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen 0 “aticonfig-Screen[0]” 0 0
Screen “aticonfig-Screen[1]” RightOf “aticonfig-Screen[0]”
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”
InputDevice “Synaptics Touchpad”
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Failsafe Monitor”
VendorName “Plug ‘n’ Play”
ModelName “Plug ‘n’ Play”
Gamma 1
ModeLine “640×480@60″ 25.2 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -hsync -vsync
ModeLine “640×480@72″ 31.5 640 664 704 832 480 489 491 520 -hsync -vsync
ModeLine “640×480@75″ 31.5 640 656 720 840 480 481 484 500 -hsync -vsync
ModeLine “800×600@56″ 36.0 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “800×600@72″ 50.0 800 856 976 1040 600 637 643 666 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “800×600@75″ 49.5 800 816 896 1056 600 601 604 625 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “800×600@60″ 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “832×624@75″ 57.3 832 864 928 1152 624 625 628 667 -hsync -vsync
ModeLine “1024×768@75″ 78.8 1024 1040 1136 1312 768 769 772 800 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1024×768@70″ 75.0 1024 1048 1184 1328 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync
ModeLine “1024×768@60″ 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync
ModeLine “1152×864@75″ 108.0 1152 1216 1344 1600 864 865 868 900 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1280×1024@75″ 135.0 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1280×960@60″ 102.1 1280 1360 1496 1712 960 961 964 994 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1280×1024@60″ 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1280×960@75″ 129.9 1280 1368 1504 1728 960 961 964 1002 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1400×1050@60″ 122.6 1400 1488 1640 1880 1050 1051 1054 1087 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1400×1050@75″ 155.8 1400 1496 1648 1896 1050 1051 1054 1096 -hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1600×1200@65″ 175.5 1600 1664 1856 2160 1200 1201 1204 1250 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1600×1200@60″ 162.0 1600 1664 1856 2160 1200 1201 1204 1250 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine “1792×1344@60″ 204.8 1792 1920 2120 2448 1344 1345 1348 1394 -hsync +vsync
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
#
Identifier “monitor1″
Gamma 1
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “aticonfig-Monitor[0]”
Option “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
Option “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
Option “DPMS” “true”
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “aticonfig-Monitor[1]”
Option “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
Option “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
Option “DPMS” “true”
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “Failsafe Device”
Driver “ati”
VendorName “ATI”
BoardName “ATI Radeon (fglrx)”
Option “MergedFB” “off”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
EndSection
Section “Device”
#
Identifier “device1″
Driver “ati”
VendorName “ATI”
BoardName “ATI Radeon (fglrx)”
Option “MergedFB” “off”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Screen 1
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “aticonfig-Device[0]”
Driver “fglrx”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “aticonfig-Device[1]”
Driver “fglrx”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Screen 1
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “Failsafe Device”
Monitor “Failsafe Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Virtual 1792 1344
Depth 24
Modes “800×600@72″ “800×600@75″ “800×600@56″ “800×600@60″ “640×480@75″ “832×624@75″ “640×480@72″ “1024×768@75″ “640×480@60″ “1024×768@70″ “1024×768@60″ “1152×864@75″ “1280×1024@75″ “1280×960@60″ “1280×1024@60″ “1280×960@75″ “1400×1050@60″ “1400×1050@75″ “1600×1200@65″ “1600×1200@60″ “1792×1344@60″
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section “Screen”
#
Identifier “screen1″
Device “device1″
Monitor “monitor1″
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[0]”
Device “aticonfig-Device[0]”
Monitor “aticonfig-Monitor[0]”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[1]”
Device “aticonfig-Device[1]”
Monitor “aticonfig-Monitor[1]”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
November 16, 2007 at 11:41 pm
thanks for posting your solution cdmdotnet!
was that in gutsy gibbon or feisty fawn?
February 1, 2008 at 4:56 pm
I spent a few hours tinkering too trying to resolve the same problem….then I bricked a laptop (downgraded bios – ooops too much!)
April 10, 2008 at 6:53 am
I was also disappointed upgrading to Gutsy, and eventually resorting to using my old hand-coded Feisty xorg.conf.
My “cursor is a white block not a pointer” problem went away, though, so that made it worthwhile for me.
Thanks for the help, folks.
April 12, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Speaking of cursors….
I’ve had nasty problems with XP screwing up the display with dual monitors. Once in a while I get this insane “bunch of stacked bars or dots” cursor.
It has something to do with MS SQL 2005 or Visual Studio 2005 and Access or Excel.
…. one or a combo of the MS apps seem to drive it nuts.
Eventually, the display turns toxic and does a violent banding thing (I’ve seen similar in Ubuntu) type of crash that kills the OS.