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I have been googling this problem for hours. I am running SuSE 10.2 with a GeForce 7900GT and the latest nVidia drivers. The dual monitor setup is working great, except for one problem. X11 is automatically considering the CRT monitor the "Primary" monitor, even when switch the physical DVI/VGA port. I want the CRT monitor to be on my left as the secondary and my LCD to be the primary, but I can see no place in xconf.org to change what X calls the Primary monitor. I also can't see an option to change this in the nice nVidia configuration GUI. It is pissing me off. Any one know what I can do? Here is my Xconf.org file, at least the monitor part..
That will only switches which side the "primary" monitor thinks the secondary monitor is, but doesn't actually change the primary monitor. When I did that, the CRT is still primary, but I have to move the mouse off the screen to the left to go to the secondary monitor on the right
OK.. Hmmm.... You *might* try changing the 'Screen 0' to 'Screen 1' near the end of the device section.
Leave the other change the way it is..
This is one of those situations where both monitors are coming out of one connector into a splitter? Or do you have 2 outputs?
All in all, you would prolly have to reconfig the whole thing, as far as swapping the horiz, vert, and resolutions for both monitors.
But I dont want to suggest that incase it doesn't work..
I also use an nVidia card, and have dual screens, but I use Xinerama, and have no trouble switching the screens around, very simple. What layout are you looking for, as in, one big desktop, 2 separate ones, etc..?
Last edited by GrapefruiTgirl; 04-02-2007 at 01:01 AM.
It's a GeForce 7900GT with two DVI outputs. The problem with switching resolutions, is everything will open up on the CRT monitor, no matter what arrangement I have it in.
At this very moment, I have it extend the desktop in the direction I want it to. The problem though, is the "start menu" in KDE is on the left monitor. No matter what way I have the desktop extend though, that CRT monitor will ALWAYS have the start menu. I realize I can literally drag the start menu to the correct monitor, but the icons won't come with it if they are on "align to grid", and even if they do move, all the windows I open will always open on the primary monitor. I am having a hard time explaining this as you can see. When you had me change "Right" to "Left", all that did was change which direction the primary monitor thinks the secondary monitor is located. It did not, however, change WHICH monitor is the primary. Even changing which port the monitors are hooked up to did the exact same thing, so I assume that X only detects monitors by name, not by their physical connections.
OK.. I still have a few idea.. But need a bit more coffee to advise concisely.
I'll return with more. As to whether you can get 'exactly' what you want, I cannot say, but I think you can get close.
I'm Back... Here's an idea:
In your xorg.conf, you only explicitly define ONE monitor and ONE screen section and ONE device section. By default/by design, X applies everything it can, to the FIRST monitor/screen defined in the conf file. Everything else it finds, gets applied to the NEXT monitor/screen combination. So, in the case of your setup, from what I know, X will ALWAYS use screen 0, device 0, and monitor 0, first.
Now, I can't say exactly which port of the card, gets used first by the card, ie: does the card see one of its ports as primary and one as secondary. I don't know.
However, you *may* get ahead of the game by explicitly defining the second port, second monitor, and second screen, thereby giving you the ability to apply specific functionality to either one port or the other.
Something I will try, to verify what I'm getting at, is to do what you are trying to do, on my own system (after the coffee) and if it works, ie, IF I can effectively set which monitor is primary and which is secondary, I'll let you know.
Sorry if I still am a little confused, or if I am confusing you but I think I understand.
Last edited by GrapefruiTgirl; 04-02-2007 at 08:48 AM.
OK, got it.. I will shortly email you an archive.tgz for you to examine. It contains two screenshots, both while I have clicked the 'identify screens' button in the configure-desktops control panel. You will see the [1] and [2] on each screen respectively. I also included the xorg.conf files for you to look at. They are quite different from yours, but the difference you're interested in is in the 'Server Layout' section. I just changed the X-positions of the displays, relative to each other. You'll also see that though I have ONE card only, there are TWO device sections, each addressing the same card.
NOTE: I didn't reconfigure my resolutions during the test, so since my two displays are at different resolutions, you'll see the black area at the bottom of the screenshot. One display is 1600x1200 and the other is 1024x768.
When I restarted X with the switched-around settings, my splash screen, login box, and desktop all came up on the 'other' screen (which in my case is a TV---we watch DVD's on it from the computer).
Perhaps a useful tip for you: If you put desktop icons on each desktop, the application will open on THAT desktop. And, applications will also open wherever the mouse pointer is located; for example, if I click my taskbar's Firefox button, and then slide the mouse onto the other screen, Firefox will open over there, insteaad of on the primary screen. It works both ways.
OK, email on it's way shortly. Hope this helps you out
Last edited by GrapefruiTgirl; 04-02-2007 at 09:52 AM.
Sh*t... Check your hotmail address that's listed on your profile
If it isn't there, I'll resend it..
Stupid hotmail .. LOL I sent it a LONG time ago. Let me know
Haha, I found it. You were looking at my MSN Messenger account. I only have that e-mail so I can access my MSN Live account or whatever. Your message was stuck in between a penis enlarging ad and a coolness test. Funny that I get so many junk messages on that account, since you are the first person to ever e-mail me on it since I created it back in 2002. Thanks again, I'll update you on how it goes. I am not feeling too hot, so I am heading to bed early.
Yes well, it *is* a Microsoft account which means they probably own the rights to it, and therefore have the right to sell the address.
Glad you found it, and wedged between two other exciting and useful emails, to boot!
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