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Dual Monitor Setup Help? : 1280×800 + 1440×900

I ordered a new monitor the other day to replace my aging 20″ CRT beast. The thing still works pretty well but I swear it weighs one-hundred pounds. So, I broke down and bought a 19″ LCD that does 1440×900. I figure if I can extend the display that I currently have to an additional 1440×900 I’ll have plenty of screen real-estate to work with.

The thing is I’m having a bit of trouble getting this to do a dual-monitor setup with my macbook. It uses the onboard intel chipset, which I would think would support this type of thing. I’ve never done much with dual-monitor or even video out for that matter so its all a bit new to me. I have tried the screens and graphics application, which really didn’t do what I expected.

If anyone has any tips or links that they can share that will allow me to extend my display (not mirror output) to this device when connected I would be very appreciative.

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Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007, at 8:11 pm by Christer Edwards. Filed in Hardware.

22 Comments

Alex

How about URandR? http://www.albertomilone.com/urandr.html

It uses the RandR 1.2 extension, so it shouldn’t need root privileges, but for some strange reason it does. Hopefully, that will change. I haven’t used it much myself, but it may help.

Posted on 25-Oct-07 at 8:48 pm | Permalink
mmmichael

I don’t know what display adapter you’re using, but if it’s nvidia with restricted driver enabled you can try gksudo nvidia-settings, then click on x-server display configuration settings and configure for twin view with the desired resolutions. Then save the configuration and restart x. Screens & Graphics didn’t work for me but nvidia-settings did. I have a 22″ lcd @ 1680 x 1050 and a 17″ crt @ 1280 x 1040. My Ubuntu desktop extends across both screens but I cover one with a Vbox window and run 2 os’s side by side.

Posted on 25-Oct-07 at 9:14 pm | Permalink
DavidT

I don’t know the idiosyncracies related to a macbook running ubuntu, but the principle is set a virtual desktop (in xorg.conf) that is big enough to cover both screen, then use the xrandr to set it up.

(please backup your xorg.conf first)

a) set the virtual desktop in the section screen subsection display of xorg.conf

Section “Screen”

SubSection “Display”
Modes “1280×800″
virtual 2720 900
EndSubSection

b) unplug the external monitor then restart X (you probably lost the compiz things) plug it again then

xrandr –output VGA –auto

xrandr –output VGA –left-of LVDS

that should do the trick

Posted on 25-Oct-07 at 9:40 pm | Permalink
Timo Aaltonen

http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/dualhead.html

Posted on 25-Oct-07 at 9:44 pm | Permalink
yeKcim

I’ve got a dell with intel chipset and a 1440×900 screen. I used a videoprojector this week and i only could use clone output (with video configuration tool). To come back the only way i found : sudo cp /etc/X11/worg.conf.1 /etc/X11/worg.conf

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 12:15 am | Permalink
David Mills

For me the solution is xrandr, On My laptop, I set 2 links up in a desktop draw with these commandes:

xrandr –output VGA –above LVDS

and:

xrandr –output VGA –same-as LVDS

To activate and de-activate multi screen respectively.

Note: you have to set up your virtual screen in your xorg.conf by hand, and set it to 2048×2048 (the maximum intel<965 can take with compiz)

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 1:59 am | Permalink
Matheus

Remember that older intel chipsets (I don’t know which is yours) don’t accept DRI in Virtual Desktops larger than 2048×2048.
SO you could use the command xrandr (without arguments) to check the names of your monitors. Then it’s easy:
xrandr –output SCREEN2 –mode WIDTHxHEIGHT –below SCREEN1
(it could be –above, –left-of or –right-of, as long as you don’t go over 2048×2048)

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 2:07 am | Permalink
Bjørn

With an onboard intel I think you should be able to use xrandr and the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver (not xserver-xorg-video-i810) in Gutsy. Mind you this is not on a macbook, but on a Fujitsu Siemens C1110.

Check out ‘man xrandr’, but a start is to connect the LCD and see what output xrandr gives. It should mention both the local flatpanel and the LCD, in particular their names. In my case they are VGA (external) and LVDS. To give you an idea on how to use it:

xrandr –output VGA –auto
Auto-configures the external screen.

xrandr –output LVDS –above VGA
Extends the desktop to the external monitor keeping the gnome panels on my larger VGA.

xrandr –output VGA –off
Shuts off the external.

It’s quite cool. I can hotplug an external monitor and extend my desktop with different resolutions on the LCD and local panel.

I do not have anything special in my xorg.conf. Try removing everything but the most basic stuff. I.e. driver selection and basic setup for you local panel.

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 2:52 am | Permalink
Marius Gedminas

http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/dualhead.html

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 2:57 am | Permalink
vidakris

there is this howto on ubuntu forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221174
Having intel chipset, you would probably use the Xinerama howto. It needs some hacking in your xorg.conf, but nothing serious, I don’t think it will cause problems. It’s more flexible than the KDE/Gnome setup utilities, of course (in the means of resolutions)

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 3:32 am | Permalink
vidakris

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221174

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 3:36 am | Permalink
Brian Boucheron

I think Apple disables that functionality in firmware. Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re trying to do. When I got my iBook I had to run a wee program such as the one found here http://macparts.de/ibook/ in order to twiddle the firmware and enable dual monitors instead of just mirroring the internal. Not sure if they still do this on the new MacBooks, but it’s worth looking into.

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 3:55 am | Permalink
Michael Campbell

I got the restricted nvidia drivers and used nvidia-settings, like a previous poster mentioned. Using Twinview, I have the laptop running at native 1920×1200, and the widescreen at 1680×1050, no problems.

I also played with the “separate x server on each monitor” setting, and it also worked, but alas, you can’t drag windows between monitors that way.

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 4:46 am | Permalink
David Edmundson

I have a Macbook and a dual monitor setup.

I use Xrandr because it rocks.

Reset your Xorg.conf files back to the defaults with dpkg-reconfigure. Unplug your external monitor and restart X.

Plug it back in and in a command line type
“xrandr”

You should see a bunch of output listing all monitors attached. My external monitor is called “VGA” but yours may be different, if so replace it where appropriate.

Turn this monitor on with:
xrandr –output VGA –auto
OR
xrandr –output VGA –mode 1024×768

This should enable it in mirror mode.
Obviously this isn’t what you want, so we turn it into a Xinerama setup by typing
xrandr –output VGA –left-of LVDS

(LVDS is the name given to the inbuilt screen)

During that you will probably experience an error message about “not having a big enough virtual screen size”

This is because the intel driver allocates a certain amount of memory for storing the screen contents, it is able to make the screen smaller, but not allocate more memory on the fly.

You can see the maximum size allowed int he first line of xrandr’s output:
“Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800″

To get round this we change our “Display” option in xorg.conf to read like this:

SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Virtual 2560 1024
Modes “1280×1024″

EndSubSection

Where the two values in “Virtual” represent the maximum total screen size needed.

Another note is there is a “bug” with the Intel graphics driver. You cannot have a super large resolution and 3D acceleration both on by default. I believe there is a way round this with 2 framebuffers but it’s all a bit complex.

Disable it like this:

# Load “glx”
# Load “dri”

Email me if you you have any further questions. Hope this helps.

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 4:47 am | Permalink
David Edmundson

I have a Macbook and a dual monitor setup.

I use Xrandr because it rocks.

Reset your Xorg.conf files back to the defaults with dpkg-reconfigure. Unplug your external monitor and restart X.

Plug it back in and in a command line type
“xrandr”

You should see a bunch of output listing all monitors attached. My external monitor is called “VGA” but yours may be different, if so replace it where appropriate.

Turn this monitor on with:
xrandr –output VGA –auto
OR
xrandr –output VGA –mode 1024×768

This should enable it in mirror mode.
Obviously this isn’t what you want, so we turn it into a Xinerama setup by typing
xrandr –output VGA –left-of LVDS

(LVDS is the name given to the inbuilt screen)

During that you will probably experience an error message about “not having a big enough virtual screen size”

This is because the intel driver allocates a certain amount of memory for storing the screen contents, it is able to make the screen smaller, but not allocate more memory on the fly.

You can see the maximum size allowed int he first line of xrandr’s output:
“Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800″

To get round this we change our “Display” option in xorg.conf to read like this:

SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Virtual 2560 1024
Modes “1280×1024″

EndSubSection

Where the two values in “Virtual” represent the maximum total screen size needed.

Another note is there is a “bug” with the Intel graphics driver. You cannot have a super large resolution and 3D acceleration both on by default. I believe there is a way round this with 2 framebuffers but it’s all a bit complex.

Disable it like this:

# Load “glx”
# Load “dri”

Email me if you you have any further questions. Hope this helps.

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 4:49 am | Permalink
Tom Vaughan

I have a macbook pro, newly installed gutsy, and a 23″ cinerama display. my xorg.conf is at: http://www.software6.net/pub/xorg.conf. The trick is to add the larger resolution to the smaller display. e.g.

Modes “1920×1200″ “1440×900″

even though this is not supported by the smaller display. and magically everything works at the right resolution on both displays with or without the external monitor connected.

Posted on 26-Oct-07 at 12:24 pm | Permalink
Jorge C. Oneto

I have two W95 Viewsonic Monitors and a Matrox 450 Dual Head, but I think this part of Xorg.conf should solve your problen, changing the frecuencies for those in your monitors.
Section “Device”
Identifier “0 Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G450 DualHead AGP”
Driver “mga”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Screen 0
Option “OldDmaInit” “True”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “1 Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G450 DualHead AGP”
Driver “mga”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0″
Screen 1
Option “OldDmaInit” “True”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “0 E95″
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “1 E95″
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Primary Screen”
Device “0 Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G450 DualHead AGP”
Monitor “0 E95″
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 4
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Secondary Screen”
Device “1 Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G450 DualHead AGP”
Monitor “1 E95″
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 4
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1600×1200″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1152×864″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Xinerama Layout”
Screen 0 “Primary Screen”
Screen 1 “Secondary Screen” RightOf “Primary Screen”
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”
InputDevice “stylus” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “cursor” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “eraser” “SendCoreEvents”
Option “Xinerama” “True”
EndSection

Posted on 27-Oct-07 at 9:33 am | Permalink
Neil Woolford

I apologise if I’m missing something here, but if you are using Gutsy, the place to start is surely the newly introduced System=>Administration=>Screens and Graphics.

I’ve just been using it to set up the internal and external displays on my laptop to mirror to a projector, but you can also use it to set up single extended workspaces across multiple monitors with varied resolutions.

I have to say that my experience was that it isn’t bombproof and bug-free yet, but persistence and a few restarts of X got me to a working system with less trouble than I usually get by trying to edit the xorg.conf file directly.

Posted on 27-Oct-07 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
Petr

I have this problem too on my HP 530 you need new driver for your Intel graphic, but you must wait becouse this driver is not in ubuntu GG first in next relace this time you can try live cd opensuse 10.3

Posted on 28-Oct-07 at 11:00 am | Permalink
Moss

Petr, I’ve got HP 530 too, and i810 – intel chipset Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, and it works in case of LCD Panel 1024×768, Resolution 1024×768…but sometimes it needs restart and the second one is Hyundai 21″ B91D…

Posted on 30-Oct-07 at 5:39 pm | Permalink
Pedro Salgueiro

Hi!

I have HP dv1597 and a 19″ CRT. I managed to dualhead with xrandr, but there is something anoying, when I enbable the CRT and put it on left of the internal LCD, the main screen is the CRT.

Is there anyway of keeping the main screen(panels) in the internel screen?

Posted on 02-Nov-07 at 5:10 pm | Permalink
Stevan Ljuljdurovic

Here is a link to an article I wrote on dual screening with xrandr.

http://navetz.com/v/132/Simple-dual-monitor-setup-with-XrandR-in-Ubuntu-Linux

I also have a intel chipset, and the process is pretty easy. You just need to modify one line in your xorg, and write a small script when you are done.

Posted on 07-Sep-08 at 12:29 am | Permalink

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