Ubuntu 12.04 display issues

[carranty]

Hi,

I've just installed Ubuntu 12.04 and am having dsplay issues. I have two monitors. There were no issues whatsoever with the LiveCD, however after rebooting (after it had finished installation) my log in screen was horrifically distorted - so much so I could not even manage to restart without falling back the the command line (The screen brought up by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F4 works fine). I've followed the advice on a couple of threads advising me to type "nomodeset" in my grub boot menu. I've just done that and it's improved things to the point I can now navigate the install. I've attached a screenshot of what things currently look like.

I've opened up the monitors application but it doesn't detect my second monitor. I've also tried to open 'Additional drivers' but can't, clicking on the icon seems to do nothing. I ideally want each monitor to have a seperate xscreen (but splitscreen will do). I've been using such a setup in 10.04 and Mint 9 without problem for years. My Graphics card is a GeForce 7500 LE. Any help on getting things working but be most appreciated!

Edit 29/04/12 : This original issue is now solved, however a number of us are unable to use two monitors in separate x-screen mode. We have the proprietary driver installed, we have configured out xorg.conf file correctly by using nvidia-settings however the screen connected by a dvi cable appears grey, and the cursor is a black cross (the desktop background is shown briefly immediately after I log in, but vanishes after ~0.5 seconds). This setup worked fine for us in previous versions of Ubuntu. If anyone knows how to solve this issue please post it here.

[carranty]

Hmm, I've just seen that the screenshot I took actually looks fine. Unfortunately that is not what my monitors show. I basically have a series of thin horizontal lines all across my screen that are very quickly appearing and disappearing.

EDIT : I've fixed the flickering issue by lowering the resolution (though now half my desktop is missing from my screen). This also seems to have sorted the additional drivers application. I shall download the recommended proprietary driver and see if that helps.

[ventrical]

Hmm, I've just seen that the screenshot I took actually looks fine. Unfortunately that is not what my monitors show. I basically have a series of thing horizontal lines all across my screen that are very quickly appearing and dissappearing.

EDIT : I've fixed the flickering issue by lowering the resolution (though now half my desktop is missing from my screen). This also seems to have sorted the additional drivers application. I shall download the recommended proprietary driver and see if that helps.

Let us know how that works out.

thanks..

[carranty]

Ok, so using the NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (Recommended) has resolved the flickering issues. Everything is now working fine however I can only get one monitor working. Even with both monitors plugged in I'm not able to get Ubuntu to detect both. Has anyone managed to resolve this?

[ventrical]

Ok, so using the NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (Recommended) has resolved the flickering issues. Everything is now working fine however I can only get one monitor working. Even with both monitors plugged in I'm not able to get Ubuntu to detect both. Has anyone managed to resolve this?

May I ask what type of monitor the other monitor is? The reason i ask is that Unity 3D may have a problem detecting a suitable monitor.

[carranty]

The monitor that is being detected is a HP w2007 connected via VGA. The one not being detected is a Samsung 2032W connected by DVI. Each monitor works fine when connected with the standard PC cable (I call it VGA but this might be wrong). It's whichever one is connected by DVI I can't detect. I'm hopeful that installing nvidia-settings will do the trick, however I'm currently downloading a couple of other packages from the repositories which are taking a VERY long time to download so I may not get a chance to try it until tomorrow.

The only monitor I seem able to detect in Unity is 'Laptop'.

[carranty]

Just an update to people who are having similar issues, nvidia-settings is able to detect both monitors and set them up to use twinview. I've been using it for the past hour and all seems fine. I still can't get it to use two separate x-screens (the screen connected via DVI is always blank, if I move the cursor over to it it turns from an arrow into a cross). I've tried both proprietary drivers in both Ubuntu and Ubuntu 2D - I'm not sure why it won't work since it was fine in 10.04 so surely can't be my hardware?. If anyone knows how to solve this I'd appreciate the heads up.

I can however live with the system as it is, and so will mark the thread as solved.

[Bealer]

I'm suffering from exactly the same issue.

I have my normal monitor hooked up via DVI and my Samsung 32" tv which goes from DVI on my pc to HDMI on my tv.

The "Displays" app only recognises my monitor. However the nvidia-settings app recognises both, but I can only run it in TwinView.

This worked previously in 11.10.

[carranty]

I'm suffering from exactly the same issue.

I have my normal monitor hooked up via DVI and my Samsung 32" tv which goes from DVI on my pc to HDMI on my tv.

The "Displays" app only recognises my monitor. However the nvidia-settings app recognises both, but I can only run it in TwinView.

This worked previously in 11.10.

I really don't get why twinview works when a separate x-screen doesn't. And I don't see how its a hardware issue when we both had working dual monitors on a previous version. If you find a solution please let me know (and I'll do the same), this twinview is ok, but it keeps momentarily trapping the cursor in between the screens whenever I move from one to the other. It didn't bother me at first but its really starting to annoy me!

[Kreeyon]

Why is this thread marked as Solved?

I'm having the exact same issue with my Dell XPS M1330. Ubuntu recognises my internal screen but fails to recognise any external screen. The Nvidia Application will recognise the external screen but will only work in twin view which is less than ideal. The resolution of the external screen is not correct either displaying a flickering image.