Originally posted by: LuckyTaxi
I refuse to run linux on a desktop until they can get dual screens to work properly. I've had better luck w/ the nvidia/ati cards but why is it such a hassle just to get my extended desktop view to work properly!
Works fine for me. My main system is now a Dell 1420n laptop with Intel IGP.
I use dual monitors exclusively. I plug in a monitor at work, I have a monitor at home. I used projectors in it. Everything, no sweat.
The only change I needed to make was to my /etc/X11/xorg.conf line. This was required because the Intel drivers don't support framebuffer resizing at this time.
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 2048 2048
EndSubSection
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
EndSection
The bolded lines are the ones I added.
I wrote a simple script to add monitors and such..
case ${1} in
both)
xrandr --output LVDS --auto;
xrandr --output VGA --auto --above LVDS ;
;;
laptop)
xrandr --output LVDS --auto;
xrandr --output VGA --off ;
;;
vga)
xrandr --output LVDS --off ;
xrandr --output VGA --auto;
;;
*)
echo
workmon vga --> external display only
workmon both --> dual monitors
workmon laptop --> laptop display only
Plug a monitor in, type that command, and the desktop will automatically stretch across both displays. Switching back and forth is easy and stable. Can do it all day long without logging out or anything like that.
Changing resolutions works fine also. Refresh rates are controllable. Also rotating the displays works just fine. No sweat.
this is due to the randr extension for X. Open source Intel drivers support it well. Most open source ATI and the Nouveau have some basic support, although the Intel support is by far the most mature.
Ubuntu has some sort of GUI for randr rather then using the xrandr command line tool. Never used it though.