Dual Monitors with NVidia in Ubuntu
Posted by modestmelody on May 12th, 2007
Email This Post
The first step towards dual monitors involves installing the NVidia 3D drivers. Luckily, NVidia has great Linux support and the drivers can easily be downloaded from the Ubuntu repository. Ubuntu Feisty Fawn gives users the option to install these drivers when first installing, but in case you chose not to install these drivers, all it requires is one line of code in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
Now that the drivers are installed, let’s make sure that we’re using them. First, let’s check xorg.conf, the main location for display settings in Linux. Type sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup. This ensures that we have a backup copy in case some of the settings we’re about to edit break X and don’t allow you to use a graphical interface! I suggest always doing thins before changing settings in Linux manually to ensure easy recovery later. Now we’re ready to edit our settings, so type sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Under the module section, replace “nv” with “glx”. Under the device heading, make sure that Driver says “nvidia”. Under the screen section, add the following line:
Option “RenderAccel” “true”.
Now save your changes and close gedit. We’re going to reload X to ensure that we’re now using the proper drivers. Reload X by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. This will require you to log back into Ubuntu, so if you’re not using a browser that saves your session, like Firefox/Swifterfox, make sure you bookmark this guide to follow the remaining instructions. If our install worked, you should see the NVidia logo flash quickly before the Ubuntu log in screen comes up. Actually, if this doesn’t work, you’re not going to be able to load X properly. If that’s the case, you’re going to have to type this into the console to replace the new xorg.conf with the old:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Assuming everything went well, we’re quite close to having dual screens working. Let’s go back into xorg.conf using sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Now go back under the heading “Screen”. Let’s add a few lines:
##This turns on NVidia’s TwinView
Option “TwinView”
##Here I’m setting the resolution to the individual monitors.
Option “MetaModes” “1280×1024 1280×1024″
That should be it! Restart X with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace and you should have two screens. If the orientation of the screens is off, try this under the “Screen” heading…
Option “TwinViewOrientation” “LeftOf”
LeftOf can be LeftOf, RightOf, Below, Above, or Clone.
Hope that was helpful!
Thanks to the progress in technology by 220-601 and 70-620 professionals, a dual monitor is not just limited to the laboratory of a 1Y0-259 pro. It was basically a requirement in SY0-101 and 642-812 courses to work on the kinks of the project and finally in 70-236 certifications candidates learn to operate it fully.
If you want to be notified the next time we write something please subscribe to our RSS feed.Thanks for Visiting!

May 15th, 2007 at 4:28 am
This is awesome! I have tried to find a guide to get dual monitors working in any distro of linux for a long time… since RedHat 9 originally came out. This is the first time I was able to get it working! Thanks!
May 15th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Great stuff!
Do you know of a way to get the laptop display to be the “main screen” and hold all the menus and stuff…?? Or even if its possible to have separate workspaces on the two screens?
/J
May 17th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I followed this and got a desktop to display on both screens. But I can’t get my mouse to move to the second desktop.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
This articles rocks but digging a little further I found something even sweeter.
If you’re running the new feisty goodness, try this on for size:
gksudo nvidia-settings
I got this tip from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1773584
Enjoy!!!
PS.
I can only get my laptop to be the main screen if I drag it to the left of the other monitor. Not sure why this is. No way I can see to set one to be the main monitor.
May 20th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Great.. works perfect.
Thankx
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:48 am
OK, the easiest way to setup dual monitors with nvidia/linux is go to /usr/bin. Type sudo ./nvidia-settings and point an click. The nvidia tool is about as easy as they come. No editing text files, just point and click goodness!
~Alan
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:31 am
You make no mention of changing refresh rates.
One needs to change ones “Monitor Section to get correct values if using CRT monitors.
My moniors are both 1280×1024 but one has a refresh of 72MHz and the other is 75MHz
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 am
Okay, I have spent probably a grand total of 24 hours setting up my dual monitors on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn.
Now, Blender freezes when I try and view a menu, and I get a jacked up screenshot from Warsow… Obviously something is wrong with my settings, but I can’t figure it out.
I have a GeForce 6200 and Ubuntu 7.04 ? [ Feisty Fawn ]
Here’s my current xorg.conf
Sorry about the length, but If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
LeSinge
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen" 0 0
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection
Section "Files"
# path to defoma fonts
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "vbe"
## the following are supposed to enable AIGLX
## -also blender for dri 6may2007
Load "dri"
##Load "dbe"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "stylus"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "eraser"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "cursor"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Viewsonic 1"
HorizSync 28.0 - 96.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 60.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia"
Driver "nvidia"
## the following are supposed to enable AIGLX
##Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia"
Monitor "Viewsonic 1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "True"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "True"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1920x1440" "1920x1200" "1856x1392" "1792x1344" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1920x1440" "1920x1200" "1856x1392" "1792x1344" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1920x1440" "1920x1200" "1856x1392" "1792x1344" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1920x1440" "1920x1200" "1856x1392" "1792x1344" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1920x1440" "1920x1200" "1856x1392" "1792x1344" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1440" "1920x1200" "1856x1392" "1792x1344" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
## the following are supposed to enable AIGLX
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
May 26th, 2007 at 4:12 am
nvidia-glx installs OK, but ctrl-alt-backspace fails as it cannot find /dev/nvidia0. The file is there:
crw-rw—- 1 root video 195, 0 2007-05-25 23:03 /dev/nvidia0
mods were per above:
May 30th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
And what if you don’t use nvidia, but a Matrox G400 card with dual monitor support. How do you get this running in Ubuntu?
June 6th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
This worked perfect for my XFX 6800XT! Thank you SO much.
June 10th, 2007 at 12:18 am
I have dual monitors but not able to get them both with the same resolution. I’m using a NVidia GeForce 7300GS with two Samsung Syncmaster 191T. I have tried to edit xorg.conf but I can only get it to turn on both monitors. I have turn on “TwinView” and MetaModes” “1280×1024 1280×1024″
June 21st, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Hm, nice.
But I´ve one question left. How can i configure it, to clone the display?
With TwinView enabled I get one screen witch is split on two displays.
What I need is the same screen on boths displays: For example: Screen one (Laptop LCD) shows a presentations which shoud be diplayed on Screen two (beamer), too.
Any ideas how i can achieve this?
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:58 am
Also, I now recommend using gksudo nvidia-settings and clicking on X Server Display Configuration on the left. This tool was not available when I setup dual screens.
As for the Matrox card or other vendors– it gets far trickier from there on. Without a specific driver like the ATI or NVidia driver I don’t think Linux supports dual monitors.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:33 am
That nvidia-settings tool is awesome! I was able to set up my new 12.1″ Dell XPS M1210 laptop and 24″ Dell external monitor (which have very different resolutions) with no fuss or mucking around with manually editing files. Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.
September 8th, 2007 at 1:41 am
If you use Lenovo T61 + Ubuntu , never install nvidia-glx as suggested. It totally screwed up my NVIDIA module and I had to run “envy” to reinstall a correct NVIDIA driver. However, dual monitor works beautifully after fixing my X configuration following the rest of the instructions
December 14th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Wow. My dual-monitors worked just by plugging them in, what a concept! Oh right… this is linux.
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm
@alan moser
# Alan Moser Says:
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:48 am
OK, the easiest way to setup dual monitors with nvidia/linux is go to /usr/bin. Type sudo ./nvidia-settings and point an click. The nvidia tool is about as easy as they come. No editing text files, just point and click goodness!
~Alan
Everybody just do this, it takes about 10 seconds and works exactly as expected.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
For all those of you, who want to have a laptop with a beamer (projector), the following may help. When you start the X server without the beamer being connected, and then use nvidia-settings to detect the screen, the maximum resolution of a second display (the beamer) you can get is merely 640×480. After some research and trying I solved it by adding the following options to my xorg.conf file:
Section “Device”
Identifier “Videocard0″
Driver “nvidia”
Option “ConnectedMonitor” “DFP-0,CRT-0″
Option “UseDisplayDevice” “DFP-0,CRT-0″
Option “TwinView” “true”
Option “TwinViewOrientation” “Clone”
Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “DFP-0,CRT-0″
Option “MonitorLayout” “LFP,LFP+CRT”
Option “metamodes” “DFP-0: 1024×768 +0+0, CRT-0: 1024×768 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280×1024 +0+0, CRT-0: 1280×1024 +0+0; DFP-0: 1024×768 +0+0, CRT-0: NULL”
EndSection
This is because X server does not detect the second display at the start and you have to force him to think the second display IS there. Without this, and using nvidia-settings I was able only to set the detected display at 640×480 or 320×200.
Later, when the X-server is started and you connect a beamer, just activate the second screen in nvidia-settings, and it can use much more resolutions than just 640×480.
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:20 am
This worked a lot better than messing around with Screens & Graphics and manually updating the conf file. Thanks!
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:17 pm
As a noob and some websites that explained xorg.conf contained the configuration, i figured this out by myself. Great article, which i knew all this a week ago.
Another note about fixing a scrolling desktop:
The virtual mode was a problem, my two Samsung 710n flatscreens are 1280×1024 and ubuntu displayed 1600×1400 on both. This made the whole thing scrollable (a view of 1280×1024 following the mouse on a 1600×1400 desktop) and unworkable.
Solution find the Virtual mode entry in the xorg.conf, and change it to your screen resolution. I had to do this for both screens.
Another note about enabling desktop effects:
By default nvidia used xinerama to enable a dualscreen setup. Running “sudo nvidia-settings” gave me the option to choose for twinview, wich works great if both screens have identical resolution. If not, stange behavour regarding windowdocking and maximizing can occur.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Excellent- saved me many hours of poking around, well done!
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 am
Just installed Ubuntu v8.04.
Followed this guide and worked fine!
Thank you!
May 4th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Thank you so much. I was very frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t get a proper dual monitor setup going with the fresh install of Hardy Heron. Being a linux newb who is eager to learn, I found this article immensely helpful.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
This is all good and well, but unless you have two monitors that fit together seamlessly, the dual monitor setup gets tired fast. Why? Well whenever you open (most) applications or a dialog box pops up - it’s displayed in the center, split across both screens.
Does anybody know how to force the positioning of all dialogs/windows to say, the left screen? A quick googling only left me with the impression that Gnome doesn’t like to let you do that, and the Compiz windowing placement plugin isn’t much help either!
May 21st, 2008 at 12:22 am
Woo-hoo! Works great with Nvidia GeForce 7300 GS on Ubuntu 8.04 with Compiz Fusion going too!
I’m using the desktop cube and after fidgeting with the compiz settings manager for a bit it’s working in an acceptable way. You’ll want to look at both the general options for desktop size and then the multi output mode options under the cube settings. Multi-output mode “automatic” seems buggy to me. I prefer “multiple cubes”, which is somewhat of a misnomer because they rotate at the same time. It appears from a web search that it’s currently impossible to get multiple completely *separate* cubes that rotate independently.
One thing… be careful about the quotes above, I copied and paste and didn’t notice the quotes are goofy. Change them to true double quotes.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:12 am
It still true for Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardly)!!!
And it’s working perfectly!!!!!
May 27th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Thanks for the great tutorial!
I am using an nVidia GeForce 7300GS OC, made by BFG Tech. The OS that I am running is Kubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). Unfortunately, this tutorial did not work for me. Kubuntu hung when trying to restart the X server after adding the Option “RenderAccel” “true” line.
However, I was able to get dual monitors working. Here is how:
1. I installed the nvidia-settings program. This is a GUI for configuring your nvidia display. (sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings)
2. I then ran the GUI (It is under the System menu if you are using Kubuntu 8.04)
3. I enabled my second monitor in the nvidia-settings program, and set it to Twin View. It worked without restarting the x-server…
4. However, it set it to Xinerama mode (where when you maximize a window it is spread across both screens). If you like that then you can stop here, however I don’t like that setting, so I did this…
5. I used the “Save to X Configuration File” option under “X Server Display Configuration” in the nvidia-settings program…
6. I UNselected the “Merge with existing file” option…
7. I clicked ‘Show Preview” and then copied and pasted everything into my existing xorg.conf file, using gedit (the reason I had to copy and paste it is because nvidia-settings could not write the xorg.conf file, presumably because I was not running the program as root).
8. I then restarted the x server by using ctrl+alt+backspace. Worked like a charm!
Here is the xorg.conf file that the nvidia-settings program created:
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@vernadsky) Tue Mar 4 20:24:34 UTC 2008
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Layout0″
Screen 0 “Screen0″ 0 0
InputDevice “Keyboard0″ “CoreKeyboard”
InputDevice “Mouse0″ “CorePointer”
EndSection
Section “Files”
RgbPath “/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb”
EndSection
Section “Module”
Load “dbe”
Load “extmod”
Load “type1″
Load “freetype”
Load “glx”
EndSection
Section “ServerFlags”
Option “Xinerama” “0″
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
# generated from default
Identifier “Mouse0″
Driver “mouse”
Option “Protocol” “auto”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “no”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
# generated from default
Identifier “Keyboard0″
Driver “kbd”
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier “Monitor0″
VendorName “Unknown”
ModelName “HP L1906″
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 76.0
Option “DPMS”
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “Videocard0″
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA Corporation”
BoardName “GeForce 7300 GS”
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Videocard0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
Option “TwinView” “1″
Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “CRT-0″
Option “metamodes” “CRT-0: 1280×1024_60 +0+0, CRT-1: 1280×1024_60 +1280+0″
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:45 am
I couldnt set up dual monitors, after modifying xorg.conf and reload x, terminal windows became white squares, also I was unable of moving windows with the “extra” option of visual effects selected. the top windows bar disapeared. However, I did as Josh and I was able to configure dual monitors, but I still cant use the “extra” settings, nautilus doesnt like them.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
For someone who’s never really configured anything in Ubuntu, that was straightforward and super easy. Thanks so much for posting this!
June 5th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Thank you all.
I managed to get it running for 2 screens and spanning accross.
Thank you very much
June 18th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
In addition to the instructions above, I followed the instructions here -
http://www.alterzone.net/blog/2007/03/01/dual-monitors-in-ubuntu-edgy-eft-with-nvidia-card/
Stage 1: Get the driver working! (1) Install binary driver at console (X will die on startup) a. apt-get install linux-generic (or whatever version you have) b. apt-get install nvidia-glx (2) Enable driver a. sudo nvidia-xconfig –no-composite (3) Check driver with glxinfo
Then I altered the xorg.conf as follows -
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder26) Tue Aug 1 22:01:29 PDT 2006
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type “man /etc/X11/xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen” 0 0
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”
InputDevice “stylus” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “cursor” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “eraser” “SendCoreEvents”
EndSection
Section “Files”
# path to defoma fonts
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc”
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic”
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1″
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi”
FontPath “/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc”
FontPath “/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType”
EndSection
Section “Module”
Load “i2c”
Load “bitmap”
Load “ddc”
Load “extmod”
Load “freetype”
Load “glx”
Load “int10″
Load “type1″
Load “vbe”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “kbd”
Option “CoreKeyboard”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
Option “XkbOptions” “lv3:ralt_switch”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “mouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Protocol” “ExplorerPS/2″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
# /dev/input/event
# for USB
Identifier “stylus”
Driver “wacom”
Option “Device” “/dev/wacom” # Change to
Option “Type” “stylus”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
# /dev/input/event
# for USB
Identifier “eraser”
Driver “wacom”
Option “Device” “/dev/wacom” # Change to
Option “Type” “eraser”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section “InputDevice”
# /dev/input/event
# for USB
Identifier “cursor”
Driver “wacom”
Option “Device” “/dev/wacom” # Change to
Option “Type” “cursor”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “XspedVision”
Option “DPMS”
EndSection
Section “Device”
Identifier “nVidia”
Driver “nvidia”
EndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “nVidia”
Monitor “XspedVision”
DefaultDepth 24
Option “RenderAccel” “True”
Option “TwinView” “True”
Option “MetaModes” “1440×900,1440×900″
SubSection “Display”
Depth 1
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 4
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1440×900″ “1280×1024″ “1280×960″ “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “832×624″ “800×600″ “720×400″ “640×480″
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “Disable”
EndSection
———————-
That’s it. It worked!!
July 12th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Thank you so much for this tutorial! It works perfectly for me! This is what I was looking for
God Bless <
July 21st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Thank you, this is a real professional instruction on the net unlike other lame ones. Now I happily enjoy my dual monitor plus exciting 3d effects!
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Thanks a lot for the tutorial - it works perfectly for me…until I reboot. Then it enters into a low-res mode (of 800×600), and does not detect a second monitor at all. My xorg.conf remains unchanged.
Anyone has any ideas on what might be happening?
I have Ubuntu Hardy, GeForce 9600GT, and two Samsung Syncmasters (22- and 19- inch)
Thanks in advance!
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Wow!
Finally it worked! cant believe this!
I have a notebook and was really loosing hopes on this…..
Its working better than windows, for the first time in my Linux experience!
Great, thx.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 am
Notes about this:
* worked well for me
* the double quote marks in the web page paste as something strange in the text editor. Type it in yourself.
* there’s an option not to display the nvidia logo- so the comment about seeing the logo may not work for you.
* my hardy heron doesn’t have the nvidia-settings program.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Hello!
Thanks for the post. I setup my two monitors using nvidia-settings and everything works like I want, but I have one little problem. The second screen isn’t always available (used by my girlfriend’s computer when she’s here). My question is, how can I easily switch dual/single monitor configurations?
August 29th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Ok, I have an 8800gtx and Ubuntu 8.04 and dual monitors went up automatically. However they are just clones. What do I have to do in order to get them to work independently? Thanks.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
modestmelody, Thanks a lot for your effort. It works for me too!!! Cheers!
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 am
Man, thanks! Tried a few, way more complicated tutorials before I found this one, with no luck. This was simple and it worked. Mo honor!
September 13th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Thanks a lot!!! fast, sharp and smart.
October 4th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Thanks man ;D
It works 100% here.
You’re the man !
October 5th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
A great tutorial, pretty easy to follow, in less than 5 minutes I got compiz running with no problems. The restricted drivers installer that Hardy ships makes this even more easy. Great blog, I’m adding this to my feeds.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
i am not able to find “nv” word after typing sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf ,
please help me out
October 21st, 2008 at 12:22 am
Perfect tute- thank you!
October 24th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Worked like a charm - thanks!
November 7th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I have also gotten dual monitors to work on my dell latitude D830 laptop. Like post 38 above, by sabastien, I have only duel monitors at work, when I bring the laptop home, I lose the second screen. I would like to easily be able to switch between screen configurations, and by easily I mean I’d like it to auto-detect, or at the very least be able to save the configurations to be able to switch at the press of a button.
Currently I use EnvyNG to install my drivers, which installs the NVidea Config tool. Starting this I can enable/disable the extra monitor. If I forget to do this before I leave work I cannot change it till I get back to work because the menus are all on the left of the screen, which is where my second monitor would be. I know nobody else leaves work in a hurry. j/k
It would even suffice to have 2 users use different monitor configurations, is this possible?
Is any of this possible?