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Works well under Mandrake 9.1 and I suspect it will work well with other distribs too. Dual Head is fairly simple to set up too:
- You need 2x "Monitor" sections, one for each monitor
- You need 2x "Device" sections, one with "Screen 0" and another with "Screen 1"
- You need 2x "Screen" sections, each matching up a "Device" and a "Monitor"
Here are relivant parts of my "ServerLayout" section:
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): $60.00 | Rating: 8
Kernel (uname -r):
2.4.20-xfs
Distribution:
Gentoo, Slackware 8.1-9.1, RedHat, most of the BSDs, Solaris 9 x86
I started this one out as a dual-head set-up and later went to a full on tri-head with a 16Mb PCI Nvidia. I had to use the binary hal module from the Matrox site... which you can't link to directly because of their click through license agreement. It worked with XFree 4.1, 4.2, 4.2.1, and finally 4.3, they're always a little behind X in getting a version out, but since I never needed DRI (xinerama being on), I would usually just cheat and use the 4.2.1 driver with XFree 4.3.0 and so forth.
3 heads with this guy is a little bit of headache. I had to do the Matrox side using mgapdesk and creating a merged framebuffer entry and then just hacked that XF86Config up with the Nvidia card's info until the bloody thing loaded right. Its a little pokey, but pre-emtible kernel helped out with that some.
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): $50.00 | Rating: 9
Kernel (uname -r):
2.4.29
Distribution:
Slackware 10.1
Make sure to manually copy the mga_hal_drv.o file included in matrox's drivers to /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ if using xorg. You don't need to install anything else from their drivers as Xorg already comes with bundled with g550 support (mga_drv and mga_dri).
DVI output works fine to my Sony SDM-S74 lcd monitor.
In xorg.conf under Section "Device" include:
Option "DigitalScreen1" "True"
Under Section "Monitor" make sure to include:
VertRefresh 60
and the correct HorizSync value range.
Problem:
When leaving the X server gui via the ctrl-alt-backspace keys the display blanks out and I can't see the prompt. DVI issue only. Only happens when leaving the gui, before starting the x server the prompt displays fine.
To conclude the Matrox G550 is a great card, especially when connected to a CRT, and as a bonus requires no fan to cool it.
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