JonR
2008-03-27, 03:33 PM CDT
This feels like so near and yet so far. I have loaded F8 onto my Tecra M5 in the hope that I shall be able to abandon its original and increasingly unstable Windows installation. There have been a few issues on the way like "can't run anaconda from the DVD; setting up wireless correctly and getting F8 to find my usb extension to which my keyboard and mouse are attached" but these are all now fixed thanks to the helpful suggestions on these forums. I am already hugely impressed with the performance of the Tosh under linux. Whereas XP took nearly 3 minutes to boot and present a work ready desktop F8 does this in less than a minute. The IDE I use, Netbeans, takes nearly 2 minutes to start under XP but is ready in fewer than 20 seconds under F8. It's all really good news except...
I can't get F8 to extend my desktop onto my second monitor. I've been through everything I can find here that seems relevant and googled until I'm thoroughly confused. If I am to run F8 as my preferred OS I have got to get my second monitor working. I'm out of ideas and would much appreciate some help. I know this is not hardware incompatibility as exactly the same hardware works fine under XP.
Hardware:
Graphics Card: nVidia G72M Quadro NVS 110M - F8 found this correctly and set the primary screen res to the maximum the laptop LCD can support 0- 1440x1050.
2nd Monitor: BenQ FP241W - I'm using the analogue external monitor port on the laptop driving the analogue input on the BenQ.
Software Revs:
I'm running 2.6.24.3-50 which was required to fix pnp-acpi errors on boot. (It also helped get the wireless working as well). For the laptop display F8 has loaded the nv drivers. I haven't attempted to use the nvidia drivers having found a number of horror stories about them with F8 on the forum and in redhat notes. Also, I don't need fancy 3D graphics, I just want to use my two screens as a single extended desktop.
I started by using system-config-display to enable dual head and immediately hit a problem. I cannot select a resolution of more than 1440x1050 for my second display. I have tried selecting both generic LCD 1920x1200 and the closest BenQ in the supplied list - FP231W - logged out an in again to restart X but in neither case does the system use the second monitor. The screen remains blank. The laptop display works fine. The display sections of xorg.conf written by system-config-display look like this:Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Option "Clone" "on"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "BenQ FP231W (Analog)"
HorizSync 31.0 - 80.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "Videocard Vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M]"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1400x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection
This all looks kind of plausible and unsurprisingly includes a line setting the second monitor to 1440x1050. The Hor. Sync. and Vert. Ref. are not optimum for the BenQ but they are within scope. Giving up on system-config-display I editied xorg.conf to reflect the resolution I know the BenQ supports giving me this: Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Option "Clone" "on"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "BenQ FP241W (Analog)"
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 76.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "Videocard Vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M]"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200"
EndSubSection
EndSection(Where Option "Xinerama" "off" and Option "Clone" "on" came from I have no idea. I didn't put them there but after restarting X they had appeared.
Anyway, the result is the same - the second monitor is not used.
I would really like to crack this one, ideally to the extent that I can use the Fn/F5 key to switch between screens as well but I'll settle for being able to do it with system-config-display if someone can tell me how to get it working! Any advice from X-gurus out there would be much appreciated.
I can't get F8 to extend my desktop onto my second monitor. I've been through everything I can find here that seems relevant and googled until I'm thoroughly confused. If I am to run F8 as my preferred OS I have got to get my second monitor working. I'm out of ideas and would much appreciate some help. I know this is not hardware incompatibility as exactly the same hardware works fine under XP.
Hardware:
Graphics Card: nVidia G72M Quadro NVS 110M - F8 found this correctly and set the primary screen res to the maximum the laptop LCD can support 0- 1440x1050.
2nd Monitor: BenQ FP241W - I'm using the analogue external monitor port on the laptop driving the analogue input on the BenQ.
Software Revs:
I'm running 2.6.24.3-50 which was required to fix pnp-acpi errors on boot. (It also helped get the wireless working as well). For the laptop display F8 has loaded the nv drivers. I haven't attempted to use the nvidia drivers having found a number of horror stories about them with F8 on the forum and in redhat notes. Also, I don't need fancy 3D graphics, I just want to use my two screens as a single extended desktop.
I started by using system-config-display to enable dual head and immediately hit a problem. I cannot select a resolution of more than 1440x1050 for my second display. I have tried selecting both generic LCD 1920x1200 and the closest BenQ in the supplied list - FP231W - logged out an in again to restart X but in neither case does the system use the second monitor. The screen remains blank. The laptop display works fine. The display sections of xorg.conf written by system-config-display look like this:Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Option "Clone" "on"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "BenQ FP231W (Analog)"
HorizSync 31.0 - 80.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "Videocard Vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M]"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1400x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection
This all looks kind of plausible and unsurprisingly includes a line setting the second monitor to 1440x1050. The Hor. Sync. and Vert. Ref. are not optimum for the BenQ but they are within scope. Giving up on system-config-display I editied xorg.conf to reflect the resolution I know the BenQ supports giving me this: Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Option "Clone" "on"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "BenQ FP241W (Analog)"
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 76.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "Videocard Vendor"
BoardName "nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M]"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200"
EndSubSection
EndSection(Where Option "Xinerama" "off" and Option "Clone" "on" came from I have no idea. I didn't put them there but after restarting X they had appeared.
Anyway, the result is the same - the second monitor is not used.
I would really like to crack this one, ideally to the extent that I can use the Fn/F5 key to switch between screens as well but I'll settle for being able to do it with system-config-display if someone can tell me how to get it working! Any advice from X-gurus out there would be much appreciated.