The biggest thing stopping me from going to linux completely right now is my monitor setup. In windows, I currently run two 7600GT cards in SLI and a third ATI Radeon 7000 as well. The SLI cards power my main monitor and the ATI powers my second monitor. I have been successful with twinview and similar when in Linux to span both monitors via one card, but I want the performance that my SLI has in Linux. I have barely seen any glimpses of this via Google, and no one seems to have an answer.

I plan on using Mandriva 2008 for my Linux distribution of choice since it was able to pick up the nVidia cards with ease, but if anyone has better suggestions, I'd be interested.

Basically, I would like to have the screen span both monitors even though they are on different cards while allowing for windows that maximize to one monitor only (somewhat like what Windows does by default). I'm also concerned about how Linux will handle SLI with the two nVidia cards, so if anyone has experience with that, how well does that work for you?

I popped in a Mandriva 2008 live CD just to see what it would pick up. It got the nVidia monitor without a problem but did not show anything on the Radeon monitor at all (out of range error).

Thank you in advance...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=860&num=1
... nvidia's Linux SLI is closer to full implimentation. Unfortunately, it is not a high priority for these guys. You can give it a go though, see how your cards like it.
The benchmarks on that link were September, I think there's been new drivers since then.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=338&num=1
http://linux.wordpress.com/2005/11/2...ux-sli-primer/

Screens scanning both monitors are possible, even with different cards, using MergedFB and Xinerama.