Nvidia/Intel 82865G Dual Monitor Setup
 

Hello everyone,

I am fairly new to linux, but am slowly learning to find my way around Slackware doing various things.

I use a dual boot XP/Slack setup, but would really like to move to just Slackware.

There is one thing thing though that maybe someone could help me with.

Under Windows i have a dual monitor setup (Nvidia FX5500 goes to my main monitor and Intel 82865G as my secondary setup), mainly to watch movies on.

How would i go about setting up the second monitor under Slackware?

Any help and/or advice would be GREATLY Appreciated

Paul.

So, do you have two video cards or one video card with two video outputs? You didn't mention whether this was a laptop or desktop.

Thanks for the reply

I have 1 Pci nvidia video card which is running the normal monitor

I am running the second monitor off the onboard Intel vga port (on the back of the tower)

The PC is a desktop

Well, essentially what you will end up doing is going into your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and defining two things for each of the sections, "Device", "Monitor" and "Screen" customizing the values for your video card, the monitor it is hooked up to, and the screen resolution size of each monitor (respectively). Then, at the bottom of the xorg.conf, in the "ServerLayout" section, you will tell X how you want the screens laid out.. Something like this ...

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Simple Layout"
Screen "Screen 1"
Screen "Screen 2" Rightof "Screen 1"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

If there is only one Server Layout value, then all you need to do is a "startx". If you want to define multiple layouts, then you need to start the one you want with

$startx -- -layout LayoutName

The only problem that I've found with this technique is that DRI is disabled on my laptop when I've "hooked" the LCD screen and an external monitor together. So, movie playback is rather poor. What you might also want to consider doing, if you don't mind keeping the monitors completely separate from each other is to start 2 X windows sessions, with each binding to a separate video card/monitor. So, instead of doing one "Server Layout" session for both monitors, you'd do one for each. And then when you started X, you would specifiy which session belongs to which monitor.

Thanks for the great advice, i will give it a go shortly