I've got a dual head ATI FireGL X1 256p video card that I'm trying to configure for either dual head or single head across my widescreen monitor. So I ran "aticonfig" with these options:

aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=left --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

That should set up my monitors to be one screen, one desktop... but instead when I restart X and log in to KDE I've got what appears to be two separate sessions of KDE going on! One screen is the same as I configured earlier and the other looks like a default KDE after just installing and logging in for the very first time. The mouse will go acrros to either monitor but you can not drag a window to the new monitor... nor can you drag one from the new to the original. There is a task bar on both monitors and a trash can also.

Does anyone know what this mode is called and what it is for? How can I fix this for just dual monitors or a single monitor>

Here's the xorg.conf file:
http://www.tyler.mcadams.com/xorg.conf.999

I run a dual-head configuration, with good results.

I try to stay away from the vendor-dual-head setups, such as nVidia's Twinview, and prefer Xinerama. Seems to give me better results, but YMMV.

In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf (or XFree86 config file, whichever you might have), the following will help get you started. Please check your driver MAN pages, and the notes for the xorg.conf file as well.

-----------------------
# SERVER SECTION
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
Screen 0 "screen1"
Screen 1 "screen2" RightOf "screen1"
Option "Xinerama" "On"
# Option "Xinerama" "On"
EndSection
---------------------------------------

You'll have to configure the screen1 and screen2 devices in your xorg.conf. Notice that the Xinerama option is set to on, which will let you use your dual-head configuration. Also, the "RightOf" flag, which tells the X server where the screens are (so that screen1 is on the left, screen2 on right, so things behave correctly). It did give me cramps getting mine set up initially, but the driver docs from ATI and the docs from xorg will tell you everything you need. Good luck.


On a related note, I haven't had good luck with ATI cards, but the nVidia cards seem to work better, at least for me.