Let me start by saying that I am loving Slackware after about a week of using it...

Anyway, I got my dual-monitor setup worked out today, but I've got a small issue I'd like to see if I can get worked out. Here's the setup:

I've got an nVidia GeForce 4 dual head card with one DVI and one analog connector. There's a 19" connected to the DVI connector and a 17" on the analog. On boot the BIOS information as well as lilo and the linux boot process appear on the 17"/analog head so it would appear that the analog connector is Head0 and the DVI is Head1. However, X starts on the 19"/DVI connection, apparently making Head1 the primary display in X. This is also the case in Windows, as the Windows boot process and the primary display in Windows are on the DVI (Head1).

So, as a recap, BIOS/boot functions occur on the analog connector (17") while GUI operations appear to default to the DVI connector (19").

What I would like is the 19" to be the primary display at all times, so the BIOS/boot process occurs on the 19" and the X login appears on the 19" while the 17" is always secondary. Is there a way to define which head on a dual-head card is the default display so that the display doesn't switch over when it hits the GUI?

Oh yeah, and what's the "affero" for?

hey,
i also have an nvidia dual card setup, i have 2 17" monitors, one running from the vga and one running from the dvi (with a dvi to vga adapter) is your setup the same because i have bios/boot up on both monitors at the same time. my primary head is the vga for all X sessions. if im not running X everything is displayed on each head. if you like i can post my xorg.conf for you to have a look at.

you should be able to edit your xorg.conf file to swap the heads around for X, no idea about bios/boot though.

It seems that our setups are similar, but I only have BIOS/Boot on the monitor attached to the analog connector. That's fine with me. I would like to see you xorg.conf, and if it's possible to swap head order in the config file I think that would end up working exactly like I want it to. Let me know if you know how to do this... in the meantime I will be searching man pages and the like...

hey,
have a quick look through your man pages for xorg.conf and check out the options "left of" and "right of" it might be as simple as adding that to your xorg.conf. i will post my conf file when i get home.

It seems that "LeftOf/RightOf" just sets the orientation of one screen to the other, but doesn't determine which monitor will display the login screen. Currently the 17" monitor (analog) is set to "RightOf" the 19" (DVI) and the 19" is the one that displays the login. I switched it to "LeftOf" to see what would happen and the orientation did switch, but the login remained on the 19" - so, regardless of the leftof/rightof orientation the login screen will continue to display on whatever monitor is attached to the DVI connector. Kind of wierd.

Just my two cents:

I've got dual monitors on my Slack as well with an Nvidia Geforce 5200 dual head, one analog and one dvi. Because I'm running subpar flatpanels, they both need analog connection so I have a dvi-analog converter on the dvi head on the video card. If you can do both analog connections to the monitors, it would just be a matter of switching the monitor cables. I posted my xorg.conf file with my install notes: http://www.davidjsnow.com/slackdesktop.html if there's any interest.

I do have both analog connections on the monitors as I'm using two CRTs, but if I switch cables then the BIOS/boot stuff switches as well and I have the same problem but reversed...

... It's really not that big of a deal, but it's annoying to me to have to use one monitor for boot and then turn my head to the other monitor to login. I know, it sounds stupid and it is, but it bugs me... I suppose only because I can't figure out how to change it.

I did notice in your config file snowman that you have the xinerama disabled which has you define both heads and both screens, while with xinerama on you would only define one head and basically fake the other one. Anyway, what caught my attention was the "Screen" option under the second head and I'm wondering if playing around with that would do it. The only thing I don't like about that setup though is that both monitors are essentially independent and you can't drag apps across monitors. I might have to play around just to try things out though.

I got a question for you though... I see that you are "cloning" your display and I'm wondering if that gives the same output on both monitors like I think it does or if not, what does that do exactly? If it does, why do you clone the display?