Ubuntu 12.04, Nvidia 295 GTX, and 3 monitors

**haqking** · May 2nd, 2012

Originally Posted by sgbirch

I like to upgrade to get the new features and programs, that is one of the joys of Linux, things keep getting better.

Or, they did!

Steve

You dont need to upgrade a distro to get new programs.

However if you want the new "features" then yes i understand, but it seems you are having issues

As for Unity and its nightmares, feel free to not use it and choose any one or more of the mulitple DE and WM out there.

The blue on youtube is a flash/nvidia thing.

Right click on the video and choose settings then choose to disable "use hardware acceleration"

Cheers

**zaziork** · May 2nd, 2012

z

**Aktrop** · May 2nd, 2012

I read this thread with great interest as I'm having similar problems:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1963938

I had accepted defeat and just given up on trying to get three monitors working. But having seen your xorg.conf give me some idea of what to try now... One problem though, whereas all your screens are identical, my third screen differs from the other two -- I'm not sure what to do with that.

I had really hoped that 12.04 would finally make multi-monitors just work. But it hasn't.

**Aerivan** · May 2nd, 2012

Originally Posted by Aktrop

I read this thread with great interest as I'm having similar problems:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1963938

I had accepted defeat and just given up on trying to get three monitors working. But having seen your xorg.conf give me some idea of what to try now... One problem though, whereas all your screens are identical, my third screen differs from the other two -- I'm not sure what to do with that.

I had really hoped that 12.04 would finally make multi-monitors just work. But it hasn't.

For starters, my graphics card has two gpu's while yours only seem to have one? I would expect that to make a difference but I'm not an expert in any way. According to nvidia your card should be fine for up to 4 monitors somehow though so I guess it should work.

Anyhow, I would try removing your xorg (probably a good idea to back it up first though) and run an edited version of this command:

Code:

nvidia-xconfig --base-mosaic --metamodes="GPU-0.DFP-0: 1920x1200+0+0, GPU-0.DFP-1: 1920x1200+1920+0, GPU-0.DFP-2: 1920x1200-1920+0"

I believe that GPU-X (rather obviously) means which gpu should be driving the monitor and DFP-X I guess represents the connector where it should send the monitors signals (DFP = Display F* Port?). If you're lucky, it should be enough for you to change the specified resolutions to what you need and position them properly (<x-res>x<y-res>+<x-pos>+<y-pos>). Notice that for positioning the pixels are counted from 0. (Meaning that if your display is 1920 pixels wide, the pixels will be counted 0...1919 and 1920 will be the start pixel of your next display)

I hope that's clear enough ^^

Another trick that you might have already learnt but I'll put here anyway since it might benefit someone else is that as long as you keep a backup of a working xorg.conf there's no reason to be afraid of messing the graphics up. All you have to do if that happens is hit the e-key in grub at startup which will let you edit the start command. Where you see "quiet splash" write "text" next to it and when you hit F10 to boot it'll send you straight into a terminal without starting up a graphical interface. From the terminal it's then a piece of cake to replace the bad xorg with the backup.

I actually have to do this not only when playing with xorg but every time I reinstall since my graphics card won't play nice at all until I install the proprietary nvidia drivers.

Anyhow, that's about as much knowledge I have to offer in these matters, hope something becomes useful to you or someone else!

**pingaan** · May 8th, 2012

I have been having the same problem.. Just installed 12.04 and been trying your xorg.conf out!
I too have a GTX295 and after weeks of trying to sort it out in 11.10 I had to go back to win7, which was a downer..

Anyway, Aerivan: The topic says [SOLVED], as far as I can see it's not?

**Jagoly** · May 8th, 2012

An Idea may be to try the latest nvidia beta drivers. Very recently, nvidia began to support Xrandr 1.2 or 1.3 extensions or something. I really haven't read too much into it; it just came up in a phoronix article.

Basically, before now, nvidia used a nvidia-only multi-monitor solution (twinview). Now it uses the Xrandr stuff to implement multiple monitors. So, a big advantage of this is that you can use ubuntu's default multi-monitor application. Among other things that I really don't know much about.

I'm using it on my desktop (560ti with two screens) and it works great.

I haven't really thouroughly read about what your current situation is, but this information may help. just add the xorg-edgers ppa and have a go.

**pingaan** · May 8th, 2012

Good to know.. You wouldn't happen to have a repository link lying about?

**Aerivan** · May 8th, 2012

Originally Posted by pingaan

I have been having the same problem.. Just installed 12.04 and been trying your xorg.conf out!
I too have a GTX295 and after weeks of trying to sort it out in 11.10 I had to go back to win7, which was a downer..

Anyway, Aerivan: The topic says [SOLVED], as far as I can see it's not?

"Resolved" might have been a better tag. After struggeling with this issue for quite some time I've basically given up hope on getting this to work (the closest thing I've ever got is using the base mosaic thing mentioned above). I consider the "solution" to be buying two new graphics cards - which is kind of a downer. (Although, if you can afford it, buying hardware is pretty fun! ^^)

**zaziork** · May 8th, 2012

I was experiencing very bad issues with my GeForce 9600M GT card; crashes out of X whenever I connected an external monitor. This issue seemed irresolvable regardless of what I attempted, both on installs of 12.04 and Linux Mint (Ubuntu edition, Lisa). I narrowed down the issue to the "current" Nvidia drivers, without question.

First resolved my issue by downgrading drivers, forcing version to "280.13-Oubuntu5.1 (oneiric-security)", which appeared to work ok. However, there were a few other issues with my instillation, so I decided to move away from Ubuntu for the first time in many years, and installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) - with the very latest beta Nvidia drivers. System is now working like a dream.

So I'd endorse the above suggestion to give the new beta nvidia drivers a go, before moving back to Windows. Either that, or force version to older drivers.