Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Dual Monitor single head video card

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Beans
    14

    Dual Monitor single head video card

    Hello,

    I have an onboard graphics card, VIA Unichrome Pro, in my laptop. It only has 1 head:

    lspci -x | grep VGA
    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. UniChrome Pro IGP (rev 01)

    Can I use dual monitors with this card? Right now my second monitor is cloned, but I want to be able to use dual monitors with this card like I did in Windows. So far I cannot find a clear answer if this is even possible.

    The "closest" I have gotten was getting an Entity already in use error when starting x, but I believe that is because it is calling the same piece of hardware for two different screens.

    Thanks for any help,
    Brian

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    NH, USA
    Beans
    242
    Distro
    Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (testing)

    Re: Dual Monitor single head video card

    It may be, you'd have to set it up manually though in your xorg.conf I'd assume. nVidia and ATI both have tools you can use to configure dual monitors. If you google xorg.conf dual monitors, there's plenty of info out there. There should also be a button on your laptop to toggle how the external display is handled.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Beans
    14

    Re: Dual Monitor single head video card

    Yes, i've been searching for hours and hours now. I've probably tried about 900,000 different things in xorg. So you're saying that it is possible, even though I technically only have 1 graphics adapter?

    Also, its a POS Via Unichrome integrated video card, so unfortunately ATI and nvidia tools aren't available to me.

    I have no problem configuring xorg manually, I just don't know how to do it since I only have a single head video card, and I am unable to find a clear answer on if its even possible to use dual monitors with this type of card.

    Thanks,
    Brian

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    NH, USA
    Beans
    242
    Distro
    Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (testing)

    Re: Dual Monitor single head video card

    It may be possible. Most laptops with a vga port are capable of dual monitors. However, it's definitely not easy on linux apart from nvidia...even ATI WITH the tool isn't all that easy. What video driver are you using? I'd say this page would be a good start, get the official driver for the adapter: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UniChrome. That installer may contain a utility for setting up dual monitors...if the adapter can do it.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •