Hey Everybody,

After never really considering linux I saw some screens of the latest distros and was blown away by the GUI so I decided to dive into Linux. This was a week ago and basically I have linux on my mind all the time, there is alot to take in for someone who has always been strictly pc and mac. It was quite rewarding when I got my GTXP working and started listening to mp3's from my fat 32 partitions, and then getting mplayer working and watching videos. I wanted to tackle something alittle more complicated. I'm used to having dual display on my radeon 8500 using windows xp pro. So i did a bunch of reading trying to find out how I would get this working on my system (RH9 on ap4 @2.4, asus p4s533 768mb pc3200, ati 8500 and too much other hardware) . I tried -x config and generated a new XF86, it would load up both screens and have two x cursors and then crash. So i then tried putting my own XF86config togethor multiple times with no luck, would always get screen 0 not available. Mind you I was still using the original radeon driver that came with RH9. Then I downloaded fglrx 3.2.8 for xfree 4.3. Ran the rpm then the ati configure utility, restarted x and my secondary monitor had the main log on screen and my primary monitor was a very garbled image of the secondary monitor image. During the driver setup I chose dual display instead of big desktop, and i used the correct refresh rates for both my monitors, but still something went wrong and I wanted to go back to my original XF86config. So I copied my back up XF86config files from my perfectly working single monitor system. X wouldnt load. At one point I finally got into X but all my icons in kde were all garbled and the task bar was not there. So i just restarted the system without doing a reboot, when the system integrity check came up I did not run it, and now x loaded fine. However if I do a proper reboot, the system will just boot to console. Is there anyway I can have a fresh XF86config generated without having to reinstall my rh9, I've spent so many hours just getting the majority of my hardare working, I'd hate to have to do it again. I know I sound like an idiot to most of you users but this is a foreign language to me and I'm trying to take in as much as I can. Anyhelp would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the book

since you had mention fglrxconfig. I assume that you had download the lastest driver from http://www.schneider-digital.de/html/download_ati.html and your rh9 was running the lastest X4.3.0.
Just install it again and do "rpm -ivh <package's name>" if it says something it's wrong with dependencies problem. then do "rpm -i --force <package's name>"
after you installed the proper driver. just do "fglrxconfig" as it told you. That script works great. then restart. go use System Log or "glxgears" to check weather your card it's running. if the glxgears util runnings around 3000 to 4000, then your driver it's working. If it did say something about "fail to initialize modules driver or ...." do fglrxconfig again and use external agpgart. then add "/sbin/modprobe agpgart" and "/sbin/modprobe fglrx" to your /etc/rc.local file.
then restart and see what it says.
I bet one of the step must work for you.

Also, what motherboard are u using??

My motherboard is a Asus P4S533, im quite fortunate the onboard sis900 nic worked or I would have never been able to find information on how to configure the rest fo my system. If i were to choose single display just to make sure i get into x without a problem, would i be able to ebable big desktop later without many problems? Thanks for the help.. I had actually used the driver from ati not that site, ill try that one instead.

ok, it worked sort of....how do I configure each monitor individually, when i go to display settings its only recognizing the monitor hooked up to the crt, however that monitor is garbled while the monitor which is clear (dvi) is not the one thats recognized.......

ok, now as it sounds you did got your radeon 8500 working right?
It that's the case, you have to use "fireglcontrol" to setup your dual monitor or just setup your dual monitor by writing Options into XFree86Config file.