Set up dual monitors in Ubuntu 8.04 for both ATI and NVidia based graphics cards without configuring xorg.conf or manually editing any other files. This should work for most ait or nvidia based dual monitor setups with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.
Directions
————-
Step 1. Download EnvyNG
-Open Synaptic Package Manager
(System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager)
-Download “envyng-core” and “envyng-gtk”
Core is the actual program
Gtk is the GUI frontend
Step 2. Use EnvyNG
-Open EnvyNG
(Application > System Tools > EnvyNG)
-Download appropriate drivers
This may take a while
Reboot once installed
Step 3. Configure Video Card
NVIDIA
-Open Nvidia’s control panel
(System > Administration > NVIDIA X Server Settings)
-Enable TwinView
Click “Configure”, select TwinView, and click “OK”
-Specify options based on your monitor setup
Select a default monitor
Chose physical monitor positions
-Click “Save the X Configuration File” and click save on the popup
-Reboot
ATI
-Located in either of these places
(System > Administration > ATI / Catalyst Settings)
(Application > System > ATI / Catalyst Settings)
(Application > Other)
-If not in any of these places, open it through the command line using “amdcccle”
Press alt + f2, enter “amdcccle” in the prompt box, and hit enter
-Open the display manager and click the display modes tab and change the select mode to big desktop.
-Apply the settings, click ok, and close the control panel and restart your computer.
Step 4. Screen Resolution
-Open the Screen Resolution options
System > Preferences > Screen Resolution
-Ensure “Clone Screens” is not checked
-Select the resolution with the largest width
I.E. 2960 x 1050
-Apply Settings and reboot
Halooo..
i’am able to do a dual monitor mode, but i unable to running compiz with dual monitor mode configuration?? do you know how to do it?? and can u tell me how to do it?? i’am using a Laptop with ATI X600
Thanx
Hi there,
Wondering if someone could help me with this process.
I followed the exact directions, however, I am stuck in Step 3. Everytime when I clicked on the “NVIDIA X Server Settings”, I get:
“You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run ‘nvidia-xconfig’ as root), and restart the X server.”
How can I solve this step and enable to TwinView under the NVIDIA X Server Settings?
Thanks and much appreciated.
Unfortunately my nvidia machine is down so I can’t test this, but I suggest trying the following:
1. press alt f2 to bring up the run dialog, and type “sudo nvidia-xconfig”
Logout and log back on (ctrl alt backspace)
If that doesnt work, try
2. run EnvyNG and reinstall your Nvidia driver, and try selecting a different version if it still doesn’t work. Make sure you restart afterwards. Then bring up the the server settings and enable twinview.
Let me know how it turns out
Erik,
Thanks so much for the post. Last weekend I upgraded from 7.10 to 8.04 and spent umpteen hours trying to get my setup to work. I have a nVidia GeForce 5200 on a Dell Dimension (yup — its old) machine and could not get the dual monitors to work.
Then I googled again today, this time only for posts within the past 90 days, saw your blog and within 10 mins I am up.
Everything worked as written.
Thanks again.
That was the best tut I’ve found, worked great! thanks!
after 3 days of frustrations, finaly i have found something what works… thank you for your existance. you will be great man one day!
can something like this get dualhead working with a nvidia agp and ati pci card? If so what’s it take? Thanks.
well, it’s works ! but couldn’t use compiz.. (I got ATI and ubuntu 8.04)
Thank you so much for this…it got my three display (2 LCD and laptop) working after much digging around on various sites for info. Nice work!
Thank you. Hp w2207 on Dell Studio 1353 working excellent
Beautiful work!
Nice work! The first 5-minutes-tutorial since ubuntu 6 which works for my ATI-Dell without crashing the xorg.conf and its drivers.
But how can i make my external second display as main display for ubuntu? Cant switch the Ubuntu GUI from Monitor1 to Monitor2 :/ (Display 2 is much bigger
You can try setting the position of the monitor in the ATI control panel, but I’m not entirely sure how you would set the external as primary – there might be an option in the control panel, but it might require manually editing xorg.conf. Sorry I can’t be more helpful!
Aww… I thought this was a post about installing both an ATI and an NVIDIA card in the same machine. I have such a situation and would like it to work on Ubuntu 8.04. I have tried messing around with the xorg.conf file quite a lot, and it doesn’t even seem possible. I haven’t tried EnvyNG yet. In your opinion, is it possible to have two different display drivers loaded for the same X Server? I have two Tesla C1060s on PCIEx16 and one Radeon HD2400 on PCI. The Teslas are only compute devices and do not display anything. However, they do need display drivers to work correctly. Any kind of help would be awesome.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
[...] ATI / NVidia Dual monitors with Ubuntu 8.04 | Quixotic Check that out. __________________ Signature Removed – Image exceeds 600 px by 150 px [...]
[...] (make a backup) sax2 -r Then do init 5 when finished. Some similar discussions: ATI / NVidia Dual monitors with Ubuntu 8.04 | Quixotic (Refer to Step 3 concerning nvidia utility. Might be all you need to do) NVidia TwinView [solved] [...]
Hi Erik thanks 4 ur post trusthly excelent…
But i had a problem… I download and install Envyng like u teach me… But when ill open in aplication/System tools… It appears but don’t run… Can u help me..
I had a laptop Toshiba satelite L20-131 n i use LINUX ubuntu 9.10… Thanks a lot…
Hi Carlos,
9.10 should come with better support for multiple displays out of the box. Try going to (this is off the top of my head, so it’s likely not the exact procedure) the System drop down and go to display, you should see an option to configure the monitors there…if not, press ( alt + f2 ) to bring up the run dialog. I believe you just need to type “envyng” and it should run. If not, there should be a checkbox in the run dialog to run it in terminal – check it. I will verify this tomorrow. Good luck!
The crazy thing is I already knew this data but never implemented it