help interpreting xorg.conf

[SteveHillier]

I have been getting nowhere using AMD Catalyst Centre to configure 4 screens on my system.

Hardware set up
ASUS m/b with onboard graphics
2 x Sapphire HD5450 graphics cards - one in 16x PCIe slot, one in 4 x PCIe slot.
Have downloaded and installed fglrx drivers from reposititories. I can get two monitors working together sometimes and whilst I can get the third monitor accepting the cursor it does not display any real output.

I am trying to configure my displays using the Cataylist Control Centre but it fails because I cannot seem to 'control' anything with it. I can change settings but it then goes off and does it's own thing which is not what I want.

I feel the only resolution is to configure xorg directly through xorg.conf and even having read the 'man' pages I simply cannot understand what is going on.

In the above text I have used the words 'screen', 'monitors' and 'displays' very deliberately because you all know that I mean the physical piece of hardware that shows me output can be described using all these words, however for the life of me I cannot understand how monitor, screen and display are interpreted in xorg.conf

PLEASE NOTE: the config files beloew have been produced using amdcccle and have not been edited manually.

Let me add one of the config files I have got

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 1024 0
	Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
	Option	    "Xinerama" "off"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "0-CRT1"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "1440x900"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "60"
	Option	    "Position" "1440 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "0-CRT2"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "1440x900"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "60"
	Option	    "Position" "0 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "1-Default monitor"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "1440x900"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "60"
	Option	    "Position" "0 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "1-CRT2"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "60"
	Option	    "Position" "0 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Monitor-CRT1" "0-CRT1"
	Option	    "Monitor-CRT2" "0-CRT2"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[1]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Monitor-CRT2" "1-CRT2"
	BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "amdcccle-Device[1]-1"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Monitor-CRT2" "0-CRT2"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Virtual   2880 2880
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[1]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "amdcccle-Screen[1]-1"
	Device     "amdcccle-Device[1]-1"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

OK back to some detail.

Lines 76 - 97 give me some devices. I assume these are the graphics adapters. Assuming the BIOS has diabled the onboard graphics. I can see why I get two devices on bus PCI1 and PCI2. but why do I get one device identified as "amdcccle-Device[1]-1" and two others as "aticonfig-Device[0] -0" and "aticonfig-Device[1] -0". Why is line 94 identical to line 80. Surely that either confuses or overrides!

Lines 14 to 74 describe some monitors. 6 are described but at the moment I only have 3 on the system

The second config file I have got differs only in the server layout section

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
	Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0" 2880 0
EndSection

but I don't understand the meaning of the differences.

Can someone please give me the idiots guide to xorg.conf or at least give me some pointers as to how to correct these files and get it doing what I want it to do.

I shall be ditching the Catalyst Control Centre if I can get this to work.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

[QIII]

When you initialized your adapters after installing, did you do

sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial

?

If you didn't, only the first enumerated adapter would have been initialized.

It appears as though you may have, but I just want to be sure.

[SteveHillier]

Hi QIII,
Yes I did do the initialise as you suggest.
Both adapters are in xorg.conf as you can see the PCI bus addresses.
Just to give you some comfort, I have had several attempts at this and this last attempt was a clean install of 12.04, immediate updates, the driver installation as in the wiki you promote in your signature - being very careful to not make any silly mistakes.
The rest I have tried to do through andcccle with the results above.

Many thanks for you response.

There are so many threads on this and similar subjects and I am just wondering if amdcccle is doing what it should do in the background of not.
Steve

[QIII]

OK. Please don't take these first few questions as indictments of your experience or intellect. Just ruling out the "face-palm" things we all do from time to time.

You are using the administrative mode in CCC?

[SteveHillier]

QIII,
I did not take any offence at your question but just to make sure and for the benefit of others who might look at this thread I laid out chapter and verse.
Yes I did use administrative mode.

[SteveHillier]

QIII
Warming to my theme I have done enough programming to realise how easy it could be for amdcccle not to overwrite or delete segments but simply added new ones in areas it knows about. The "I know about this one because I put it there" type of thing. And the "don't mess with things I now nothing about" cautionary tale.
I recall way back in MS-DOS days someone coming up pleased as punch saying how he had now written a routine the change the system clock - and how crestfallen he was when I asked whether he had reset the real time clock or just the software clock.
As I have just put in a different post - I am not saying it is but
maybe, just maybe. And I don't have the expertise or understanding to know if this is the case.

[QIII]

That's why I like to ask one question at a time. Easier to follow for someone else later!

In the Catalyst Control center, under "Pages", "Display Manager" on the "Multi-Display" tab, do you have "Multi-display desktop with displays(s) x" selected? (In your case x should be 4).

[SteveHillier]

Hi,
Sorry, I have had to come into the garage to check.
In the display manager at the moment becuase I have yet to connect up the last monitor I have the following

If I highlight:-
the first display it reports "Multi display desktop with display(s) 2"
the second display it reports "multi display desktop with display(s) 1"
the third display it reports "Single display desktop (Multi-desktop)" and there is no option in the drop down box to select "Multi display desktop" for this display.

I have read this as "Display 1 knows it is sharing space with display 2 but not display 3; Display 2 knows it is sharing space with display 1 but not display 3; and display 3 knows he is "Billy no mates".

I did not get the "Multi display desktop" option on any monitors until I plugged a monitor into both ports on a single card.

[QIII]

Come to think of it, you are right. I'm on a cell phone right now doing this from memory. I have multiple cards on two machines, but I run them for GPGPU and don't currently have monitors attached to any but the first card.

I didn't pay enough attention to you xorg.conf or I'd have noticed only three monitors.

Now is the point where I ask if you have Xinerama enabled, since I don't see it in your xorg.conf. Don't change anything. Just a question.

This is also the point at which I tell you that you are going to make me have to add more to the wiki.

[SteveHillier]

Hi QIII
hope I am not running up your cell phone bill too much.

Ok, So I found another monitor and plugged it so now
On card 0 I have monitor 1 & 2 which are sharing the same space.
On card 1 I have monitor 3 & 4 which are sharing the same space, but they do not share the same space as monitors 1 & 2
by enabling Xinerama I can now see and move across all monitors.

So at the moment I have what I need to have.

So it appears that you cannot share across adapters unless Xinerama is enabled and the use Xinerama is deprecated. In fact your wiki from memory explicitly says to disable Xinerama.

Because of the groupings of the monitors you have to use monitors attached to adpaters as a single entity not what I really wanted but I will have to live with it.

It does beg the question What if I don't use multi display desktops but simply attach all four monitors and enable Xinerama.

QIII, many thanks for your input. You might feel you will have to update your wiki. I will experiment as per the last paragraph and post back. I might even write - not a "How to", but a "how I did it" thread.

Steve