[CentOS] Dual Heads?

[Peter Serwe]

Karanbir Singh wrote:
> Ian Harper wrote:
>> I had similar probs with and IBM desktop - ended up replacing ATI 
>> card with a dual head card (Nvidia GeForce) and now all works a treat.
>>
>
> if you are using the ATI drivers, have you tried using their tool to 
> do the xorg config's ? I've had my laptop ( a Turion ATI setup ) 
> running with Dual head in Span move, and with TV out with the ati 
> proprietary drivers.
>
> Unfortunately I dont have that setup anymore or I would have posted my 
> xorg.conf
Oh well, basically, I tried without the proprietary drivers and just the 
xorg.conf using the
Gnome Display app, and then manually checking through the file to make 
sure nothing
clobbered anything else.  No joy.  Then, I tried installing the ATI 
proprietary driver,
which incorrectly made my ATI card primary, and the Intel 865 
secondary.  I doublechecked
the system bios to make sure that it wasn't doing anything different, 
which it wasn't.

I attempted to use aticonfig to set it to a proper dual display, 
horizontal, and while aticonfig
worked as advertised, it didn't fire up my secondary video, and 
continued using the ATI card
as the primary.

I successfully switched the primary/secondary around with a little bit 
of judicious editing of the
/etc/X11/xorg.conf, but still no second active monitor.  Apparently the 
ATI driver's programmatic
editing of xorg.conf really likes the idea of working with a single 
video card with dual plugs,
either dual analog, analog/digital, or digital/digital, or a single 
adaptor with dual screens, as in
a laptop.  Maybe that *is* the issue, although I was under the 
impressing that Xorg could handle
both drivers without too much difficulty.  It's not like the conf file 
is complicated or anything.

Anyway it slices, I have *not* figured out how to get it to work right, 
although I'm thoroughly
enjoying using my considerably crappier Intel on-board video until I go 
fork up for a dual-head
card.  Bah!  I don't really expect X11 to be completely as easy as 
windoze, but it's decidedly
proof-positive that *nix is used for mostly server applications because 
the UI isn't really any
further ahead today than it was 8 years ago.  Maybe I should go install 
Mandrake if I want a
workstation/UI centric *nix on my workstation.

:P

Peter

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Peter Serwe <peter at infostreet dot com>

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