3 Monitors in Mandriva 2007.0
 

Has anyone been able to get three heads running in Mandriva? I have been trying like crazy and can not get it to work, I am running one ATI card, and a dual head nVidia.. Here is my xorg.conf (The third head goes active, but is blank)

Have you had a look thru the log file /var/log/xorg.0.log to see if there are any indications of the problem? I am browsing your file, but it is quite different than I use, as you are using modelines. LOL, those confuse me, I prefer the 'other' way..
I have 2 screens on my nvidia card as we speak, without problems.
Have you considered getting the real nvidia drivers from nvidia, rather than using the default ones? Not sure if it would help the exact issue of no picture, but would surely help everything in general, performance-wise (is that nvidia an AGP card?).
:)
EDIT: Could you also tell me which monitors are what? as in, TV's or monitors, and are they CRT or LFP flatpanels?
I'd be happy to create a new file for you, both for your benefit, and for my own learning value. It may work, it may help, or it may not work, but I'd like to try if you would like.

EDIT: On further examination I can suggest 2 things:
1 - add a third device section for the second nvidia head. call it device3, and adjust the appropriate screen section as required.
2 - If one nvidia display is a TV, and you give it a mode it doesn't like, the card will kill the output to that device. Are you sure you are giving any TV's a valid resolution?
My TV, a big General electric, wont work with greater than 1024x768. It just goes black.
3 - I also see in the device sections, you have specified 'Screen 0' twice, yet there is no 'Screen 0' specified in the server layout.

They are all Acer AL1706 19" Flat Panels, but I will try

Adding third device Didnt work.. I Had tried that, but its on the same busID, I dont know what to put.

Yes, they get the same BusID.. The main differences between your setup and mine (besides the OS's I mean) is:
1- you want to use twinview for whatever reason, where I use Xinerama
2 - You have an extra card besides the nvidia.

I couldn't get twinview to work on my system.. Either I had one black screen, or the 2 desktops overlapped. It was weird..
But with Xinerama, it's perfect.

The only thing I am uncertain about, is how for example, would one have modules and/or server-flags apply to one card (the ATI) but not the other. Which may be akin to your problem. Can you tell me, which screen is not working, the ATI-powered one, or an nVidia?
I ask because, it might be easiest to get the 2 nvidias working, and THEN work on adding the ATI..

The ATI works, and the first head on the dual nVidia, The reason I dont want Xinerama is I want them to be on seperate X sessions, not sharing :) I dont HAVE to use twin view, its the last thing I tried. So both cards are working, just the second head on the dual isnt... WEird :-P

Weird indeed.. Well it seems you know what you're doing, especially based on the layout of the file.
I'm not really clear on the exact differences between Xinerama and Twinview -- I have the README file for the drivers, it provides a lot of detail, but still, it's a bit vague to me.
Not sure what you mean by 'separate X sessions'... Please explain. Like, do you want for example 2 different users to each have a screen of their own?
Using Xinerama the way I have, the X server sees my 2 displays as '2 separate X screens', but I don't know if that would equate to '2 different sessions'..
Also, as I mentioned, I did get weird results with twinview.
Currently, I can open applications on either screen, and maximize/fullscreen them, and have separate wallpapers for each screen. Using Twinview, I seemed to have both screens overlapping, but I may have learned a bit more since then, and maybe I could get it working now, but.. Not sure.
The innards are a little confusing, but if you could explain a bit more what you need of your setup, in the context of '2 separate sessions' I'd be happy to continue trying to help you sort it out.
I guess I have taken an interest in the various configurations of the nVidia cards.
If you don't have the README file, it's worth getting.
:)
PS- remember, a given device can only drive one display. So as far as the BusID's, you (I believe) need to specify a device for each screen. Where the Dual-card is technically 2-cards-in-one, they still should each have a device and screen and monitor section, but the devices DO get the same BusID. :)

With Xinerama, the task bar is expanded thru both screens, like for instance your X server looks at the config like its a big widescreen and you share.. The way I am running now, with 2 is they each get their own instance of X, their own task bar, and so on... Only drawback is you can not drag between screens.. Id be fine with Xinerama tho if it can get my 3rd monitor up and running :)

Heh thanks... Been on Mandriva since it was Linux Mandrake, first distro was Linux Mandrake 6.0 :)

Actually there are several setups of the taskbar; the way I like it, is with my taskbar only on my desktop. There IS an option to stretch it across both screens, but my second screnn is a TV where it's mainly used for movies and has a crappy picture when it's not displaying a DVD movie. So, the stretched taskbar is not ideal for me. I keep it just on one screen.
The taskbar is configurable (using KDE, I can't say for others) by using the 'Desktop Configuration' GUI, as in 'right-click desktop --> configure desktop'

You are correct that *somehow* the X server sees this as one wide-screen, something like 2624x1200. But the card apparently divvies up the input and simulates 2 screens.

Well, I tried the new Xorg.conf... Still doesnt work, this is weird..

OK, how about anything relevant from the log file? Maybe a hint or 2 in there..
/var/log/xorg.0.log