Fedora-10 Dual-Head (ATI Radeon X1300)

[Not Ken Shabby]

2008-12-03

I have a ATI Radeon X1300 video card, with two LCD monitors attached:
1. Samsung SyncMaster 226BW
2. BenQ FP22W

Under Ubuntu-8.10 both monitors are detected, and supported correctly.

Under Fedora-10 if I try to "un-mirror" the monitors I cannot close the dialog - only cancel it.

And yes I have also tried installing from rpmfusion.org

If I try to modify the resolution of the monitors I can save the dialog, but I immediately loose all monitor support --- no GUI, no text, nothing, even on re-boot nothing but black screens.

I have only attempted to configure through 'point and click' --- I figure if it is offered it should work (?).

I know there are posts/messages saying "the ATI drivers are still under development" and "don't install the manufacturers drivers, only install from rpmfusion..."

What I cannot figure out is why if Ubuntu-8.10 can get it right - why it does not work under Fedora-10?

Cann't some just go get the drivers from Ubuntu and stick them in Fedora (or rpmfusion) ???

Of course everything works just fine under windows as well, :-)

Anyone want to take this as a challenge and show that Fedora-10 is "just as good as Ubuntu" or ISB forbid Windows?!?!?

((( BTW: ISB = Imaqinary Supernatural Being --- which I am trying to substitute in to all phrases where people say .... GOD ... )))

Have a happy day (ISB willing)

[LBCoder]

In this case, ISB = DRM/DMCA/USgovernment+hollywood/MS who have conspired basically to make it next to impossible for GPU specifications to be properly disclosed by hardware manufacturers.

That being said, x1300 is an R500 chip, supported by the open source ati/radeon driver and by radeonhd, ALTHOUGH, this support is fairly recent and may still contain bugs.

Now there are two ways to configure multiple displays;
1) X server configuration file,
2) user settings.

There is a graphical way to configure the X server, HOWEVER, this program has always lacked the ability to *actually work*. This method is System --> Adminstration --> Display. This program may or may not be installed. If it is there, I wouldn't waste my time with it.

The second one works *sortof*. By sortof, I mean that the display settings may or may not be applied before your gnome panels start, which means that your panels may all move onto your primary display device. This setting is available at System --> Preferences --> Hardware --> Screen Resolution. Uncheck the box that says "mirror", then drag the pink square off from covering up the green square (put it beside or something, this indicates the relative positioning of the two displays), then set the resolution for each display, and press "apply".


If you want to do it the right way though, you need to create an xorg.conf file and modify it manually.

Here's a starting point... create a file "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" with the following in it:

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "single head configuration"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105+inet"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "radeon"
	Option "monitor-DVI-0" "mon0"
	option "monitor-DVI-1" "mon1"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "mon0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "mon1"
	Option "LeftOf" "mon0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor "mon0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

This may, of course, need to be tweaked for your specific configuration. For example, where I have it set "LeftOf", you may want "RightOf" or "Above", etc., and where it says "monitor-DVI-0" and "monitor-DVI-1", you may need something different, like "monitor-VGA-0" (or 1) for standard VGA plug, "monitor-LVDS" (laptop), etc.

Notes:
1) If you have installed fglrx from rpmfusion, REMOVE IT.
2) I tested this with a Radeon HD3650 using two DVI connectors. It should also work fine with your R500.

[flakrat]

Thanks for posting that xorg.conf file, it helped me recover from an attempt at getting fglrx working (using the 9.1 catalyst from rpmfusion).

Before attempting fglrx, I had a working dual head config working in F10 with my Radeon RV380, X600 card.

The only way I could get dual head to work was by creating a "Virtual 2560 1024" display.

With the fglrx, I was getting great FPS numbers, however only one of my LCD's would ever wake up, the other would remain sleeping. Ultimately I gave up and removed akmod-fglrx and the custom non-radeon kernel.

The problem, my old radeon version of xorg.conf no longer worked, my displays both powered on, but were clones.

Your xorg.conf file got me working again. Thanks

[David Becker]

I used to tweak all kinds of settings in order to get dual display working while retaining the ability to also work on a single display.

I recently reinstalled my laptop (x1250, somewhat different chip) with Fedora 10, including all current updates. That installed the default radeon driver. Then I followed Leigh's howto on how to setup the ATI driver through rpmfusion. This involved a modification to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Everything works fine now, but a few points are worth paying attention to:

1. I use the ATI Catalyst Control Center to configure dual monitor setup.
2. I use 'gnome-display-properties' to configure the desktop size.

So if I use two monitors, I have a desktop size of 3360x1050 (1680x1050 * 2h). If I move to one monitor, my desktop size remains twice as wide as desired. So I then change the desktop size in 'gnome-display-properties' to 1680x1050.

That's all I require. Besides the modification to /etc/X11/xorg.conf in Leigh's howto on setting up the ATI driver, I've never had to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf afterwards.

David