I recently got a new computer (new Motherboard, video card, etc) and have made it a dual-boot between Ubuntu 7.10 and Windows Vista. My video card has 2 monitor connections, both DVI. In my current setup, I have 2 monitors, my main 22" Acer LCD, and a 17" Philips LCD. The 22 uses DVI, and works perfectly. The 17, however, uses VGA, forcing me to use a DVI-VGA adapter to get it connected.

Now, when I go into Vista, both monitors are detected, and work just fine. In Ubuntu, I only get the 22" working, and when I go to monitor settings, it only shows the one. On my old machine, I was using the same 2 monitors, but both using VGA connections, as that is what the card supported. When I went into the display settings, they both showed up. I also know that on the old computer, it would display everything on both of them the same from the initial BIOS display through to an actual GUI starting. On the new one, the second monitor only gets a signal when Vista gets into its GUI, and is able to do something with it.

I figure this may be important, as if the BIOS/video card doesn't know the second monitor is there, then it cannot report it correctly to Linux for it to pick it up and use it. Unfortunately, since I only have the one adapter, I cannot try making them both VGA and seeing if it picks up either one.

So, any ideas on what I can do to get the second one picked up and working?

There is lots of information out there - just google

linux "multiple monitors"

and take your pick of HOWTOs. No.1 is here on LQ. I don't know if Ubuntu provides extra/automatic support for multiple monitors. If not you will probably have to edit some configuration files manually and maybe install some extra packages as detailed in the HOWTOs.