HOWTO: Get Dual Monitor Display Working - Ubuntu 8 / Hardy Heron

[Buddy Gurt]

Excellent! Thanks for the very helpful post. I have a HP laptop with 1680x1050 resolution with an external 1280x1024 LCD monitor. Adjusting the xorg.conf as you suggested indeed resulted in a dual (extended) screen. Some remarks though:

1. After every boot the laptop screen was set to 1280x1024. I could adjust that manually with System - Preferences - Screen resolution, but it's annoying, obviously. However, I found out that a minor change in xorg.conf did the trick:

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	# Monitor	"Configured Monitor"
	Monitor		"lcddisp"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
	Option		"metamodes"	"VGA: 1280x1024 +0+0, LVDS: 1680x1050 +1280+0"
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth	24
		Modes	"1680x1050"
 		Virtual	2960 1050
 	EndSubSection
EndSection

This completely solves my problem! Now the laptop screen is set to 1680x1050 after every boot. (Note that my laptop is RightOf the LCD screen).
By the way, booting without the LCD screen still works fine (as it is supposed to).

2. I've read before that dual screen and Compiz can't work together for Intel videocards. The nice thing is that when I work with dual screens Compix is automatically switched off. Restarting with one screen turns Compiz back on. Nice! Although dual + Compiz would be nicer of course...

3. One thing I still can't fix is the fact that my Gnome panel is always on the LCD screen, while I would like to have it on my laptop screen. No matter what I try in xorg.conf or XRandR, it's always on the LCD screen. I expect that this is not an xorg problem, but a Gnome thing. Anyone any suggestions to change this?

[Buddy Gurt]

Before I forget (this might be helpful for some people): I first had to remove the package xserver-xgl before the above procedure worked.

[Toshibawarrior]

Ok, I have an Intel 945GM chipset...i followed this tutorial entirely from beginning to end...And this crap still doesn't work!

After changing the xorg.conf and restarting X, I just get a huge desktop between both screens (15.4 laptop LCD and a 27" Panasonic TV, plugged via S-Video) with the gnome panel on the TV (not the default screen) and the desktop icons scattered through both screens. Even worse, when i restart my PC, the laptop's screen goes blank and turns off...just the TV is available.

I really dont know what the heck is wrong with this thing! I'm beginning to hate this whole "two-head-laptop" thing...

And besides I set the "modes" with the correct resolutions and when i restart (if both monitors turn on) the resolutions stays at 1024x768 on both monitors, completely and utterly ignoring (and giving a damn) about what i specified in the xorg.conf.

Looks like this stupid computer wants to give me a headache...I've been fighting with this for weeks now...

Can anyone please help me?!...

Here's my xorg.conf:

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Generic Keyboard"
	Driver		"kbd"
	Option		"XkbRules"	"xorg"
	Option		"XkbModel"	"pc104"
	Option		"XkbLayout"	"us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"synaptics"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
	Option		"HorizEdgeScroll"	"0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Option "monitor-TV" "lcddisp"
	Option "monitor-LVDS" "laptop"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"lcddisp"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "laptop"
	Option "RightOf" "lcddisp"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"laptop"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"	
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth   24
		Modes  "1280x800" "640x480"
		Virtual 1920 1280
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		"Default Screen"
	InputDevice	"Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

I'm getting extremely annoyed with the whole "laptop screen won't turn on".

PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME! Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!

[svamppi]

I bought a second monitor today and have been struggling to get an "extended desktop" going. With the Gnome panel on one monitor and with ability to move applications over to the other monitor. I was using the proprietary driver first and was only able to get two xservers running or something at first by manually messing with the xorg.conf. After I switched the driver in xorg.conf back to radeon everything started working better. But don't you need the proprietary drivers to get the hardware acceleration to work? And even though the setup I have now functionally is like I want it, the mouse cursor flickers when it hovers over certain spots on the screen.

[utnubuuser]

Hi -- Ditto - tried the tutorial without much luck, but checked the xorg.conf file in Ubuntu 8.10 after going through the System>>Preferences,(in 8.10 dual monitors works flawlessly and automatically through the System>>Preferences>>Screen Resolution), and noticed that xorg had symply added the Virtual 2048 768 to my "Screen" section, tried adding it to the corresponding lines in 8.04 xorg.conf and got automatic dual screens.

[Zezu]

I tried this way, No Luck. came across the following bit of code while researching Dual monitors, But only works for Nvidia:

nvidia-xconfig --twinview --enable-all-gpus

To use this code:
1.Restart your computer in recovery mode
2. When the bule screen gives you 4 choices, drop into root.
3. use above code
4.ctrl+d to get back to blue screen
5. continue on.

Enjoy!

[dremanu]

This worked for me perfectly! Thank you for sharing.

[alingham]

Hey - I'm in KDE 4.1, and can only get dual monitors working this way and it works totally fine.
However, it seems to remove the window decoration that kwin provides and instead resorts to some default white oxygen theme, but the buttons are on the wrong side.
This doesn't happen when I have the default xorg.conf file, but then the dual monitors can only be clone.

Sidenote:
KDE 4.1's Display configuration puts both dual monitors ontop of each other, and they can't be moved outside of their own boundaries. Big bug! If anyone has a solution I suspect I won't need the xorg.conf modifications...

[sbuhlig]

mhenwood

You are the man.

After reading the link and your post. Worked great.


Big Thanks!!!

[CHaoSlayeR]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get a dual head setup with my old nVidia Geforce FX 5200 Go 64M using the nv driver with no success until now. The external display of this Dell Inspiron 8600 just don't get any signal.

I tried the how-to here as it is basically the same as the intel one that works great for ati and radeon driver but not for the nv I'm using.

I previously used the nvidia proprietary driver with the success that I got dual head but I want to use KDE4 at usable speeds and on the notebook display the nv driver performs very well (although without 3D hardware acceleration and so without effects). But I can't get a dual head configuration.

My external monitor is a NEC MultiSync FE1250+ (21" CRT with Sony Trinitron flat) connected to the Sub-D.

Xrandr doesn't recognize the second output:

Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1280x800+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x800       60.0*
   1024x768       60.0
   800x600        60.0
   640x480        60.0

The ddcprobe only gets information from the external display:

vbe: VESA 3.0 detected.                                            
oem: NVIDIA
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
product: NV34 Board - p136nz Chip Rev
memory: 65536kb
mode: 640x400x256
mode: 640x480x256
mode: 800x600x16
mode: 800x600x256
mode: 1024x768x16
mode: 1024x768x256
mode: 320x200x64k
mode: 320x200x16m
mode: 640x480x64k
mode: 640x480x16m
mode: 800x600x64k
mode: 800x600x16m
mode: 1024x768x64k
mode: 1024x768x16m
edid:
edid: 1 3
id: 61b6
eisa: NEC61b6
serial: 0000304f
manufacture: 40 2001
input: composite sync, sync on green, analog signal.
screensize: 40 30
gamma: 2.200000
dpms: RGB, active off, suspend, standby
timing: 720x400@70 Hz (VGA 640x400, IBM)
timing: 720x400@88 Hz (XGA2)
timing: 640x480@60 Hz (VGA)
timing: 640x480@67 Hz (Mac II, Apple)
timing: 640x480@72 Hz (VESA)
timing: 640x480@75 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@56 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@60 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@72 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@75 Hz (VESA)
timing: 832x624@75 Hz (Mac II)
timing: 1024x768@87 Hz Interlaced (8514A)
timing: 1024x768@60 Hz (VESA)
timing: 1024x768@70 Hz (VESA)
timing: 1024x768@75 Hz (VESA)
timing: 1280x1024@75 (VESA)
ctiming: 800x600@85
ctiming: 1024x768@85
ctiming: 1152x864@75
ctiming: 1280x960@85
ctiming: 1280x1024@85
ctiming: 1600x1200@75
ctiming: 1792x1344@75
ctiming: 1920x1440@72
dtiming: 1600x1200@111
monitorrange: 30-110, 50-160
monitorname: NEC FE1250+
monitorserial: 110112367

The Xorg.0.log with the nv driver also only gets EDID information from the external display but initializes only the internal one. That confuses me a lot as I think when the driver detects a display it must be able to use it.

I slowly come to the conclusion that the nv driver doesn't support dual head modes at all although there is a "DualHead" option for the device section available. But trying to use it just doubles the virtual size, nothing more.

Please help me with that!

C]-[aoZ