Suggestion - Dual Screen GUI

[munwin]

Just a suggestion for Edgy - setting up dual monitors (either with Matrox, NVidia or ATi cards) is a pain. There is no simple GUI to use. I have managed it with all three cards (using Dapper on a dual screen ATi x700 ATM) - but it isn't "easy", nor intuitive. Maybe something that probes the vid card, then downloads + installs the correct (proprietory) driver. Next probes your monitor. Finally, asks if you have multiple monitors, and how they are positioned. Then it writes xorg.conf.

I realise "sudo dpkg reconfigure xserver-xorg" goes some of the way, maybe it could be used as a starting point, and the other stuff added (with a nice GUI of course).

Thoughts ?

[sumadartson]

Echoing this sentiment. Very good idea. The xorg.conf has been the most serious nerding I have had to do get my machine working properly.

[mrvw0169]

This would be an awesome thing! Right now, in order to configure my i810 for dual screen means that I have to manually edit my xorg.conf (unless there's another way I'm unaware of) and add ServerLayouts and Devices...

Luckily, I've gone through the motions configuring my xorg.conf in Gentoo/Arch so it's just a matter of copy/paste. It would most definitely be nice to be able to configure dual screen and resolution similar to say Windows' Display properties in a "no-brainer" GUI... Oh, and it would be even better if it can configure S-video out too =P

[munwin]

Expand on this, to account for multiple screens, detect monitors and install necessary drivers...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=156243

[Gibb]

Nice idea.. but why not do it for video settings in general?

One GUI application that can set resolutions & refresh rates, configure multiple video output to monitor and/or s-video out, etc.

One of the main reasons I still use XP on my laptop is to view DVD and video files on my TV through S-video output, because I'm not too familiar with xorg.conf and all of it's options.

[Bou]

Just a suggestion for Edgy - setting up dual monitors (either with Matrox, NVidia or ATi cards) is a pain. There is no simple GUI to use. I have managed it with all three cards (using Dapper on a dual screen ATi x700 ATM) - but it isn't "easy", nor intuitive. Maybe something that probes the vid card, then downloads + installs the correct (proprietory) driver. Next probes your monitor. Finally, asks if you have multiple monitors, and how they are positioned. Then it writes xorg.conf.

I realise "sudo dpkg reconfigure xserver-xorg" goes some of the way, maybe it could be used as a starting point, and the other stuff added (with a nice GUI of course).

Thoughts ?

There's this guy Joel Bryan who creates really good software; most programs he creates are quite simple but brilliant nevertheless, and he says he's taking ideas. You could always try asking him, this sure looks like something he would do.

http://joelbryanonsoftware.blogspot.com/

[munwin]

Expand on this, to account for multiple screens, detect monitors and install necessary drivers...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=156243


Here's the homepage:
http://www.cyskat.de/dee/progxorg.htm

Apologies for post whoring !!!

[Gibb]

Here's the homepage:
http://www.cyskat.de/dee/progxorg.htm



That app looks nice.. I'm gonna give it a try tonight! :)

[ssam]

there should not be much that you manually need to configure. the right choices should be made for you. if i plug in a second monitor, it should instantly be used at a sensible resolution. all that is need is a simple tool to choose whihc side the new screen goes on, resolutions, and whether to mirror or span.

also a gui tool is not much use if X wont start.

[aamukahvi]

also a gui tool is not much use if X wont start.
Yeah. It should fall back to vesa/vga in case of failure.

[pelle.k]

This is a thred that deserves bumping up!
Personally i think this is one of the most confusing task for newbies, but nevertheless something everybody with dual monitor / tv-out has to do by hand.
I'm pretty sure this would be A++ to edgy...

[shrift]

Just to echo everyone else. I would love this.

[denjin]

there should not be much that you manually need to configure. the right choices should be made for you. if i plug in a second monitor, it should instantly be used at a sensible resolution. all that is need is a simple tool to choose whihc side the new screen goes on, resolutions, and whether to mirror or span.

also a gui tool is not much use if X wont start.
Yeah, you'd think most of the options could be detected and not require all this user input. Even if it has a problem getting the resolution from the monitor, it could just default to 800x600 or somethinig and then let the user set that portion up. Dual screens are certainly overly complicated to setup, with one having to edit like 3-4 places in xorg.conf manually.

Doesn't SUSE have a gui tool for this?

Using the vesa one for the initial setup should work for most configurations, at least that seems to work for Windows.

[terryc]

Yes!... this is really needed... dual monitor config has been a show stopper for me each time I have tried to install ubuntu.

[sumadartson]

I wonder though, what percentage of the people using (k|x|ed)ubuntu has several displays hooked to their pc? 20? 30?

Also, does anyone have any experience on how the composite stuff is doing on two displays?

[sumadartson]

Yes!... this is really needed... dual monitor config has been a show stopper for me each time I have tried to install ubuntu.

What kind of card do you have? Perhaps I can point you to the right howto or help you myself.

[terryc]

What kind of card do you have? Perhaps I can point you to the right howto or help you myself.
Hi sumadartson and thanks for your reply,
I have an ATI radeon 8500 on my home machine with 2 19" benq FP991s (1280 x 1024).
And, at work I have a nVidia card with a 19" Dell LCD and a Dell 19" CRT (I don't know the models until I return to work Tuesday) both 1280 x 1024.

At work the monitors are connected via a splitter. My co-workers all have similar machines running fedora 4 and it detected the monitors correctly but I tried to mix and match the xorg.confs without success.. in the end I had to get my work done and I sadly booted my XP partition. The second monitor looked fine during boot in a mirrored mode but goes garbled once gdm starts.

Thanks,
Terry

[sumadartson]

TerryC,

I'm not sure how to help you on the nVidia setup, since I run a machine with an ancient ati card myself.*

However I had had to do some serious configuring. After the dist-upgrade to dapper the only thing that broke was X.

# skip if fglrx is working
First of all, make sure you have the latest ati drivers installed. I followed http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=143283&highlight=ati+driver

# skip if fglrx is working
This thread to fix a broken library (at least, broken for ancient ati) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=185033 .

This got fglrx working and in mirror mode.

Now, for the relevant sections of my xorg.conf Input devices etc. left out.


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen" 0 0
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection
# NOTE THE SECOND MONITOR
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "PHILIPS 107T 1"
DisplaySize 280 105
HorizSync 30.0 - 60.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
# NOTE THE SECOND MONITOR
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "PHILIPS 107T 2"
# Display size is to convince X to scale video correctly should be same ratio as your width x height in resolution
DisplaySize 280 105
HorizSync 30.0 - 60.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
# Mucking about with composite, so there is some unnecessary stuff in here.
Identifier "ati9200se"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "DDCMode"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "SubPixelOrder" "None"
Option "ColorTiling" "False"
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768-1024x768 1024x768-1024x768"
Option "CRT2Position" "RightOf"
Option "DesktopSetup" "horizontal,reverse"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

#Note the one monitor
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ati9200se"
Monitor "PHILIPS 107T 1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection




This is my setup for the xorg.conf, adjust according to your home configuration. If it doesn't work, please post your xorgconf and /var/log/Xorg.0.conf. Meanwhile, I'll start working on finding some more useful howtos / wikis.

cheers,

Suma

* The good news is that I'm installing Ubuntu at work, sometime next week. The machine there has a nvidia cart. Should be fun! :mrgreen:

** Apologies for any unclarity, I'm kinda exhausted.

[jaymode]

I definitely would like this. I have a laptop and am getting an LCD to run with it, but am dreading trying to configure my nvidia card to run both the laptop screen and lcd and then only show on the laptop screen when the lcd isnt there.

[flub]

I'd like to add my vote to this.

[TigerWolf]

Definately something that should be added. Configuring xorg.conf was the biggest headache and still is (still havent got it working completely)

[mkw87]

Echoing this sentiment. Very good idea. The xorg.conf has been the most serious nerding I have had to do get my machine working properly.
Agreed, for me, it always has been when using linux, but thats probably because I started with slackware. Boy was that fun when my buddy burnt me the discs and I installed it, and I was met with a black screen and a command prompt. I got x configured though, thank god I had an nvidia card though.

As for the monitor GUI, I definately agree. The addition of a GUI for any process will only make ubuntu more user friendly and draw more users to it. And there is always manual editing and bash for the true nerds who want to do it that way.

As for composite + dual screens.....I'll let you know later tonight if I get it working.

[henriquemaia]

This would be great. And a GUI tool that took care of all Xorg configurations, better still.

[morgengenuss]

i agree. editing xorg.conf is pain.
actually i got the monitor i have attached to my laptop working, but still...

and @sumadartson: i think people with multiple displays are getting more and more. furthermore this tool is not supposed to be just for setting up dual screens.

[WorLord]

I've said it once, I'll say it again - why not Sax2?

[Dadgumit]

just wanted to add my "pretty please" here. Setting up multiple monitors has been brutal.

[Amaranth]

This is not the place for feature requests. There should be a sticky at the top of this forum that explains.