I've been running Debian for a while. It has been about a year since I did a clean install on this computer. I hosed the system and had to do a clean install. The home directory is on a separate drive. I'd been using Squeeze for the last year (with a little from Lenny and a little from Sid), no proprietary drivers and everything worked great.

With the recent install two kernels were installed. 2.6.30.2 and 2.6.32-trunk-amd64. When I start with 2.6.30.2 it identifies my projector, only problem is that the desktop can't be configured with a different resolution allowing only the projector's max resolution for the desktop monitor 1024x768. When I start with 2.6.32-trunk-amd64 I can adjust the monitor to my hearts desire, but not even xrandr --query finds the projector. Trying dpkg-reconfig xserver-xorg doesn't do anything.

I need the system to identify both monitors and allow a different resolution to be set. Suggestions?
(Currently I'm compiling a fresh kernel from kernel.org with nvidia modules. It is based on the 2.6.30.2 config. I'd prefer not to install the proprietary drivers.)

Also eth0 just quit working after a while. Same setup with the same router which it stayed up and connected for a long time before. Now it believes it making a dhcp request but it doesn't get answered -- which is nonsensical as I can see it is connected on the router.

I'd really like to be able to use stock kernels as I've not had good luck with vbox and custom kernels in the past.

I don't think your kernel is to blame for the eth0 issue. I seem to recall seeing something online about that. Try searching for "Lenny eth stops working" Second why not just use the proprietary drivers for your graphics card? Aside from that I don't use a projector or dual screen, but you could try editing your xorg.conf manually, or check to make sure that you are not trying to mirror the desktop and that you are using dual screen setup.

As far as the resolution goes, if you are mirroring screens you will only be able to go to the highest resolution that the lowest res screen goes. Windows does the same thing when I connect one of our company laptops with windows to our projector the screen res changes automatically to match the projector.

Thank you for the suggestion. It was news to me.

I prefer not to, but I may be forced to.

I would normally edit the xorg.conf but this is the new X that doesn't seem to use it. I don't want them mirrored but I can't set them to not mirror -- that's (one of) the problem(s).

YOu can still enter anything you want in the xorg.conf and it will be honored. The new way just autodetects everything, but it can be overridden with manual settings in xorg.

Even if Xrandr isn't identifying the displays?
Thanks I'll give it a try.
(I have not been able to install the proprietary drivers -- I just keep getting the message that the source doesn't seem right or not found. I've compiled three different kernels and specified the source with the --kernel-source path option to no avail. They were compiled with headers.)
(This is when someone add that it's as easy as the Nvidia one liner, which does not work "E: Couldn't find package linux-headers-2.6.32-trunk-amd64" or "E: Couldn't find package linux-headers-2.6.30.2").

You need to explicitly download those header files via apt in order to compile the nvidia drivers.

That was the output from apt.

Using the kernel 2.6.32-5-amd64 and xrandr I can manually set the display sizes with xrandr and once again I have the option to unify (or not the displays) with krandrtray.

Well glad it seems solved. I would have suggested that you next try to look for the header using aptitude.