Dual Screen Ubuntu

Goodshape

Nothing annoys me more on Linux / Ubuntu than the pathetic dual-screen support.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 on a MacBook Pro (5,1) with an external monitor attached. Even leaving aside the fact that I have to manually open NVIDIA X Server Settings to enable the additional screen every time I plug it in (and disable it again before unplugging) due to a total lack of plug-and-play support, the options I have are :

Separate X Screen --- which is just bizarre. Basically an entirely separate instance of X on the additional screen, with no ability to drag application windows between screens and some other strange behavior. I didn't spend too long trying this one out (and switching between this and the next option requires a total X restart. Blargh).

TwinView --- this works *almost* as you'd expect, expanding the desktop across both screens. BUT... both monitors now share settings, such as Color Correction, as there is technically only one 'X Screen'. But these are totally different monitors with different requirements in the settings department.

So, using TwinView, it's impossible to have both my monitors set up correctly - and usually I'm forced to settle for something which is pretty ****e on both monitors, but not entirely awful on either. My laptop screen is too 'colourful'/vibrant while I can't tell the difference between #fff and #ededed on the washed-out external.

Google searches have only found me other frustrated users.

I wonder has anyone here run dual-screens and how they deal with it? Are there specific graphics card or monitors that work better than others with Linux? I'm a little bit bemused that this is still so difficult with a modern, graphical, Linux distribution.

Goodshape

So it is generally just something that's put up with? That's a real shame.

If I were building a machine tomorrow, is there any graphics card manufacturer with better support for Linux than Nvidia or ATI?

niallb

Have you had any success just using the Gnome applet for
System -> Preferences -> Monitors ?
I use that anytime I need to plug in an external screen or projector,
and have used it for some time on permanent dual screen setups.
I've used it with Intel chipsets and a Matrox for sure, but I think I
also had a nvidia card that I don't recall giving me much trouble.

flamegrill

Doesn't the nVidia control panel allow you to set those modes/settings on a per display option. I've a Geforce 8600GT and I can change all the settings on each display using the nvidia cp that came with 10.04. I'm lucky enough to have 2 x 24" LED monitors so I don't need to do anything too funky. But if I wanted to I could for example have one of them vertical..

niallb

Actually I've done that too. My wife's external monitor is on a swivel and we can switch it without affecting the laptop screen. It's handy for a fullscreen pdf preview of a magazine.

Goodshape

Thanks for the replies everyone.

niallb wrote: »

Have you had any success just using the Gnome applet for
System -> Preferences -> Monitors ?

No, when I open that I get a message "It appears that your graphics driver does not support the necessary extensions to use this tool. Do you want to use your graphics driver vendor's tool instead? -- clicking YES opens up the NVIDIA X Server Settings. (clicking NO opens the Monitors yoke, but it's non functioning).

flamegrill wrote:

Doesn't the nVidia control panel allow you to set those modes/settings on a per display option.

No, not that I can see. I can set things like overscan, depth, mode and digital vibrance on each monitor individually but brightness, contrast, saturation and colour correction are set on the 'X Screen' - and there's only one of those to choose from ('X Screen 0'). So any changes I make effect both monitors.

After much tweaking, I think I've got them looking as good as they're going to get at the moment. One slightly too colourful, one slightly too washed out. I just wouldn't want to be doing much graphics work :-/

Goodshape

^^ true enough

Naikon

This is not an issue with Linux. This is an issue with the Nvidia blob driver. I think you will have far less problems with the experimental open source nouveau driver provided in Fedora 14 among other distros. Make sure you try the experimental driver, along with an up to date version of mesa. The experimental driver uses the direct rendering infrastructure to render 3d, so much slower than the nvidia blob, but far more reliable and dare I say, easy to use. If Nvidia refuses to play nice, there is nothing the kernel devs can do. tl;dr - try the open source driver.

Naikon

Goodshape wrote: »

^^ true enough

The open source driver is not very fast(at least at present, very experimental) but it will allow you to play some indie games and stuff like Quake Live. Graphics work is still possible, but don't expect similar performance to the closed driver. It's more than sufficient for most tasks however. 2D is much nicer with the open source drivers. Everything feels "snappier" imo.