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I still haven't found a linux distro that doesn't eventually resort to me fudging with xrandr for a week trying to get multiple monitors working correctly. Gran

by __--__ 13y ago

I still haven't found a linux distro that doesn't eventually resort to me fudging with xrandr for a week trying to get multiple monitors working correctly. Granted, this was 3 years ago. Have any linux distros solved the problem of configuring multiple monitors using a gui yet?

drivebyacct2 13y ago
>Granted, this was 3 years ago. Choked on the water I was drinking. Is this a serious poast?
eropple 13y ago
> Have any linux distros solved the problem of configuring multiple monitors using a gui yet? For two monitors on one video card, things are pretty okay on Ubuntu and derivatives. More than that, especially 3+ with non-uniform geometries, and you will have fun. If you have multiple video cards, you will have even more fun.
- ngoldbaum 13y ago
  "fun"
- rurounijones 13y ago
  I have two nVidia cards in SLI powering 3 monitors. Setup was pretty simple using the binary nVidia drivers on Kubuntu, 0 config file wrangling. Now, having those three monitors in non-uniform geometries is something I wouldn't even consider tackling [EDIT] Kubuntu 12.04 All monitors in a single X Session and automatic application window sizing works as you would expect in KDE (i.e. Maximising a window maximises to the current monitor only and being able to drag to right side of one monitor causes the window to use up half of the current monitor)
  - eropple 13y ago
    Can you get them all in the same X session? I've never tried SLI, I generally just upgrade to a beefier main card and use a second card to drive extra monitors. I have an HD6970 and an HD6450 on 4 monitors that work great under OS X (Hackintosh'd) and Windows and things go extremely sideways under Ubuntu.
    - dripton 13y ago
      I had 3 monitors / 2 Nvidia cards working fine in Kubuntu 11.04 and 12.04. All one X session. It was easy. But that was with uniform geometry. (I had 3 identical monitors.) Haven't tried non-uniform.
    - rurounijones 13y ago
      Ah well, Radeon with Crossfire under Linux is... yea, good luck. All I can say is nvidia in SLi works fine.
icebraining 13y ago
Define correctly. Multi-monitors worked just by plugging them in, and I could configure the mode (clone, extend, etc) using a GUI panel. I did use xrandr to setup the virtual screen so that I could define the exact position of one screen relative to the other, which enabled objects to continue in an horizontal line across monitors.
thristian 13y ago
My understanding is that the driver-makers that cooperate with Xorg and the kernel implement the official multiple-monitor stuff nicely and everything more or less Just Works. Unfortunately, that's pretty much only Intel. nVidia and AMD like to do everything themselves rather than cooperate, and so things like multiple-monitor support can require driver-specific config tools, or messing with config-files to tell the drivers to emulate the standard interfaces so the standard tools will work.
chrismonsanto 13y ago
I use two monitors with an nVidia card, and it just works. You can configure stuff through nVidia's GUI application, if you want to.
dripton 13y ago
My personal experience over the last couple of years: I ran Gentoo for years, and my experience was similar to yours. I could get things to work but it took a lot of frustrating trial and error, and then periodically a version upgrade would break everything and I'd get to start over. About a year and a half ago I finally got sick of it and installed Kubuntu. Kubuntu 12.04 + 2 monitors + AMD proprietary drivers = you get to choose between accelerated OpenGL and multiple monitor support. You can't have both at the same time. (At least I couldn't, with the video card and driver versions I had 6 months ago. I spent many hours trying, then remembered I have more money than time and bought a $90 Nvidia card.) Kubuntu 12.04 + 2 monitors + Nvidia proprietary drivers = easy. The GUI worked, first try, no problems. The only goofy thing was that my left monitor showed up on the right side, giving me a choice between physically moving the monitors or changing the default positions in the GUI. I changed the defaults in the GUI. Also, on my former work machine, Kubuntu 11.04 and 12.04 + 2 Nvidia cards + 3 monitors = easy. (Some cow-orkers had 2 Nvidia cards and 4 monitors, also easy.) I haven't tried newer versions of Kubuntu on a multi-monitor box, so it's possible (but not likely) they've gone backwards.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  > The only goofy thing was that my left monitor showed up on the right side, giving me a choice between physically moving the monitors or changing the default positions in the GUI You could have switched the cables. Just saying :)
  - PakG1 13y ago
    Depends on if both cables were the same type. Possible the monitor ports were different?
    - dripton 13y ago
      Different cable types. One analog, one DVI.
zensavona 13y ago
I have 3 monitors over 2 video cards on Fedora 19 - works fine & as one would expect.

by __--__ 13y ago

drivebyacct2 13y ago

>Granted, this was 3 years ago. Choked on the water I was drinking. Is this a serious poast?

eropple 13y ago

> Have any linux distros solved the problem of configuring multiple monitors using a gui yet? For two monitors on one video card, things are pretty okay on Ubuntu and derivatives. More than that, especially 3+ with non-uniform geometries, and you will have fun. If you have multiple video cards, you will have even more fun.

ngoldbaum 13y ago
"fun"
rurounijones 13y ago
I have two nVidia cards in SLI powering 3 monitors. Setup was pretty simple using the binary nVidia drivers on Kubuntu, 0 config file wrangling. Now, having those three monitors in non-uniform geometries is something I wouldn't even consider tackling [EDIT] Kubuntu 12.04 All monitors in a single X Session and automatic application window sizing works as you would expect in KDE (i.e. Maximising a window maximises to the current monitor only and being able to drag to right side of one monitor causes the window to use up half of the current monitor)
- eropple 13y ago
  Can you get them all in the same X session? I've never tried SLI, I generally just upgrade to a beefier main card and use a second card to drive extra monitors. I have an HD6970 and an HD6450 on 4 monitors that work great under OS X (Hackintosh'd) and Windows and things go extremely sideways under Ubuntu.
  - dripton 13y ago
    I had 3 monitors / 2 Nvidia cards working fine in Kubuntu 11.04 and 12.04. All one X session. It was easy. But that was with uniform geometry. (I had 3 identical monitors.) Haven't tried non-uniform.
  - rurounijones 13y ago
    Ah well, Radeon with Crossfire under Linux is... yea, good luck. All I can say is nvidia in SLi works fine.

icebraining 13y ago

Define correctly. Multi-monitors worked just by plugging them in, and I could configure the mode (clone, extend, etc) using a GUI panel. I did use xrandr to setup the virtual screen so that I could define the exact position of one screen relative to the other, which enabled objects to continue in an horizontal line across monitors.

thristian 13y ago

My understanding is that the driver-makers that cooperate with Xorg and the kernel implement the official multiple-monitor stuff nicely and everything more or less Just Works. Unfortunately, that's pretty much only Intel. nVidia and AMD like to do everything themselves rather than cooperate, and so things like multiple-monitor support can require driver-specific config tools, or messing with config-files to tell the drivers to emulate the standard interfaces so the standard tools will work.

chrismonsanto 13y ago

I use two monitors with an nVidia card, and it just works. You can configure stuff through nVidia's GUI application, if you want to.

dripton 13y ago

My personal experience over the last couple of years: I ran Gentoo for years, and my experience was similar to yours. I could get things to work but it took a lot of frustrating trial and error, and then periodically a version upgrade would break everything and I'd get to start over. About a year and a half ago I finally got sick of it and installed Kubuntu. Kubuntu 12.04 + 2 monitors + AMD proprietary drivers = you get to choose between accelerated OpenGL and multiple monitor support. You can't have both at the same time. (At least I couldn't, with the video card and driver versions I had 6 months ago. I spent many hours trying, then remembered I have more money than time and bought a $90 Nvidia card.) Kubuntu 12.04 + 2 monitors + Nvidia proprietary drivers = easy. The GUI worked, first try, no problems. The only goofy thing was that my left monitor showed up on the right side, giving me a choice between physically moving the monitors or changing the default positions in the GUI. I changed the defaults in the GUI. Also, on my former work machine, Kubuntu 11.04 and 12.04 + 2 Nvidia cards + 3 monitors = easy. (Some cow-orkers had 2 Nvidia cards and 4 monitors, also easy.) I haven't tried newer versions of Kubuntu on a multi-monitor box, so it's possible (but not likely) they've gone backwards.

JohnTHaller 13y ago
> The only goofy thing was that my left monitor showed up on the right side, giving me a choice between physically moving the monitors or changing the default positions in the GUI You could have switched the cables. Just saying :)
- PakG1 13y ago
  Depends on if both cables were the same type. Possible the monitor ports were different?
  - dripton 13y ago
    Different cable types. One analog, one DVI.

zensavona 13y ago

I have 3 monitors over 2 video cards on Fedora 19 - works fine & as one would expect.