||<>|| = Intro = This guide is written for [[HardyHeron| Hardy Heron]] and seems about the same for Lucid Lynx (the 10.04). The author is using a nVidia Ge``Force 8600 GT with restricted drivers on a dual head setup. It will most likely work on other supported versions of Ubuntu with only minor adjustments, usually only in names and titles. You can check your video card model by running, from [[UsingTheTerminal| terminal]]: {{{ lspci | grep VGA }}} More information can be provided by running {{{ sudo lshw -C video }}} {{attachment:IconsPage/important.png}} This guide does not cover Xinerama, please see [[XineramaHowTo]]. = Installing Restricted Drivers = Restricted drivers are generally needed to take advantage of multi-head setups. There are a few options for installing the restricted "nvidia" drivers: * see [[BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia]] for using the built in method, '''Hardware Drivers''' or '''Restricted Drivers Manager''' * see [[NvidiaManual]] for installing the drivers manually or using '''Envy'''/'''EnvyNG''' {{attachment:IconsPage/note.png}} Using Envy/EnvyNG or Manually installing the drivers may require you to reinstall them after kernel upgrades. = Setting up Multi Head = == Setup == After the system reboot, you can change your X settings by going to '''System->Administration->NVIDIA X Server Settings'''. If you installed the driver manually, it may be under '''Applications->System Tools->NVIDIA X Server Settings'''. Alternatively, run from terminal: {{{ gksudo nvidia-settings }}} In Lucid i just went to the top taskbar/panel and clicked on System - Preferences - Monitors A pop-up box appeared saying "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 on the "Yes" button got me to the gui tool shown in the screenshot below. If the driver didn't install this (Envy/EnvyNG surely does), you can install it manually with {{{ sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings }}} You then should see something like this: {{attachment:nvidia-settings.png}} From the left pane, choose '''X Server Display Configuration'''. Now click the second screen in the dialog window and click '''Configure'''. Then enable ''Twin``View'', like so: {{attachment:configure.png}} Alternatively, you can choose ''Separate X screen'' which will require you to reboot the computer later. Choose your screen resolution, or leave at Auto. Position is usually best left as directional, but Absolute is OK if you want to set it manually. You can also swap primary displays from here. === Differences === Twin``View * one large screen shared between two monitors * in Compiz-Fusion, it makes the "cube" appear as one large octagon Separate X screen * separate X screens, one on each monitor * allows your window manager (Metacity, XFWM, Compiz, etc.) to be aware that there are two screens * in Compiz-Fusion, each monitor has its own cube, controlled separately == Saving == Now we will save the new settings by clicking '''Save to X Configuration File'''. {{attachment:save-x-config.png}} I prefer to ''uncheck'' '''Merge with existing file.''' Now click '''Save'''. If it gives you an error, "Unable to remove old X config backup file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup' then click OK and open the save dialog again. Click '''Show preview...''', select all and copy. Now open a terminal and run {{{ gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf }}} Delete the current contents of this file and paste what is in the preview. Save and close. {{attachment:save-x-config-nomerge.png}} Now you can quit the Settings window. If needed, restart X by logging out and back in, or typing {{{sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart}}}, or reboot the computer. = Troubleshooting = {{attachment:IconsPage/faq.png}} During the course of this tutorial, if X breaks and you no longer have a GUI, you should uninstall the restricted driver, reset xorg.conf and then reboot. '''Note:''' If you are trying to save your xorg.conf file after changing settings in the nvidia-settings app and you recieve the error message {{{ Failed to parse existing X config file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' }}} then you can resolve this by replacing your xorg.conf file with the commmand {{{ sudo nvidia-xconfig }}} You should then be able to follow the procedure described here and save the new xorg.conf. The error described here seems to occur after a fresh install of Karmic. == Removing Restricted Drivers == If you installed from Hardware Drivers (aka Restricted Drivers Manager), either uncheck the box there, or run: {{{ sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-glx-new }}} You may need to subsitute in {{{ nvidia-glx-legacy }}} or {{{ nvidia-glx }}} depending on your card. If you used EnvyNG to install the restricted drivers and cannot access the GUI to uninstall them graphically, run from a tty or recovery mode kernel: {{{ envyng --uninstall-all }}} If you installed restricted drivers using a .run file from Nvidia's website, {{{ cd }}} to the appropriate directory and run {{{ sudo sh --uninstall }}} again, substitute from the above examples. == Resetting xorg.conf == From a tty or the recovery mode kernel, you can run {{{ sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg -phigh }}} == Reboot == You should now reboot the computer. If you are at a terminal or tty, run: {{{ sudo reboot }}} = Other Resources = {{attachment:IconsPage/resources.png}} Here are some other useful and related pages. * [[DynamicMultiMonitor]] * [[NvidiaManual]] * [[BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia]] * [[http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html| EnvyNG and Envy Legacy]] * [[XineramaHowTo]] ---- CategoryHardware CategoryXwindowSystem