more dual monitor woes with Mint 19.2
 

Hello,

I've hit an annoying issue with a new install of Linux Mint 19.2 and my dual monitor setup.

The system is a pair of Dell 22" 1680x1050 monitors, a Quadro FX3500, a Dell server and a new install of Linux Mint 19.2 patched to the latest patch level.

On initial setup it works, Mint assumes that the primary monitor is the left hand one, the secondary is the right hand one (that is the mouse transits from the right hand margin of the one with the toolbar to the left hand margin of te one without).

However if I try to change the layout using the display widget to move the screens to reflect the physical layout (they're vertically above each other) one of the two screens doesn't display anything (and goes to sleep). Even cancelling the change doesn't wake the screen up... so I've now got two screens where only one works for my account. Mint seems to think that both screens are working...

xrandr |egrep 'onnect|creen|\*'
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3360 x 1050, maximum 4096 x 4096
DVI-I-1 connected primary 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 474mm x 296mm
1680x1050 59.88*+
DVI-I-2 connected 1680x1050+1680+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 473mm x 296mm
1680x1050 59.95*+


inxi -GxxS
System:
Host: pangonot Kernel: 4.15.0-54-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.2.3 wm: muffin dm: LightDM
Distro: Linux Mint 19.2 Tina base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA G71GL [Quadro FX 3500] driver: nouveau v: kernel
bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10de:029d
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: nouveau
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz, 1680x1050~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NV49 v: 2.1 Mesa 19.0.8 direct render: Yes

Logging off / logging on doesn't get the screens back to both working (the login screen does run both screens, offering the login prompt on whichever the mouse is on, but one of them goes into power saving as soon as I log in). Rebooting doesn't fix it either... I've now got one monitor displaying the primary window and the mouse can move off the right hand margin into what Linux believes is a working screen but it's not sending the signals to the monitor to keep it awake.

The system is a rebuild, because on the previous rearrangement I'd moved the primary window behaviour as well... and lost access to it on the not working screen... and as it was pretty much a new system a reinstall of 19.2 to check that it wasn't something failed in the 19.0 upgrade seemed sensible.

On the Mint 19.0 build it worked fine orienting the two screens logically to reflect the physical arrangement... it's something that 19.2 has introduced.

Since you're using Quadros are you using the NVIDIA driver? If so, then you should use its tools to set your displays up, like nvidia-settings.

Using Debian. Discovered ARandR : Another XRandR GUI

"ARandR is designed to provide a simple visual front end for XRandR. Relative monitor positions are shown graphically and can be changed in a drag-and-drop way."

It's lets you visually create your screens layout and creates shell scripts. If you swap different monitors, it real great to configure keys to run the scripts.

Either way, you can create a script for the layout you want and put it in your Start-up Applications. It may not be ideal, but in the end it gets the job done and there's nothing really wrong with it.

273 - no the Nvidia driver for that card won't install on Mint 19. It fails to install. Haven't tried it on 19.2. NVIDIA driver 304 is the one NVIDIA recommends and it went out of support a while back. I've not experimented to find if any later NVIDIA driver does work with it.

djk44883 - My first thought was maybe that would work, however using the built in tool under 'display' looks like it does the job except the monitor isn't getting any signal. Turns out my initial statement wasn't quite right... if I use the display tool to put the display back in the default organization, log off and on again, both displays work. It looks like the nouveau driver is happy with the default orientation but vertically stacked, it just gets upset. Unfortunately arandr suffers from pretty much the same issue... line DVI monitor 2 up under DVI monitor 1 and hit the tick... monitor 2 goes into power saving. Put it back, monitor 2 doesn't wake up (but will probably do so when I log off / on.

So the tool used to configure the settings doesn't affect the result... my guess is the nouveau code is broken in some subtle way for this card. I might try a different video card if I can't get an NVIDIA driver to work!

It does look like the values are held on a per-user basis...

The nvidia issue is what I last used Linux Mint. I've been happy with straight Debian, but have nothing bad to say about Mint.

I believe the system uses xrandr libs to configure displays, so, probably why the same results. But I'm not absolutely certain that's how it works.

I have a desktop with dual-display - nvidia, I know how crucial this is. My mediaPC - intel integrated graphics, switches between 1 or 2 TVs, so yes, properly configuring dual displays does matter!

Best of luck, something comes through.