I am trying to get my dual display working, but am getting lots of errors. We can rule out any hardware issues. This machine is a W7-RC/Ubuntu 9.04 dual-boot, and both monitors work fine when I boot to W7.

This seems overly-complicated. Dual displays are fairly common--any vid card over $50 has two ports nowadays. Am I making a newb mistake? tyvm4 any help you can provide.

This is a fresh install. The first thing I want to do is get my two monitors working (having just one monitor is so annoying!) I followed the instructions at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d...32_180.51.html, as outlined below:


1. Downloaded NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.51.pkg1.run
2. "sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.51-pkg1.run"
3. ERROR: "It appears that you have an x server running..."
4. Rebooted to run level 3 (no x server).
5. "sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-180.51-pkg1.run"
6. Installer did some stuff; compiled a driver, and some other things.
7. Rebooted
8. ERROR: "Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode."
9. ?

bump

I have no experience with dual monitors on Ubuntu. I can point you in the right direction though.
First, you should use the nvidia driver from the Ubuntu repos instead of the driver from nvidia.com. The only reason to use the driver from nvidia.com is if for some reason you absolutely must have the latest driver that has not yet been added to the Ubuntu repos. Usually, this is not the case.
First, remove the driver from nvidia.com that you installed:
Just to be safe, reboot after that. Hopefully, your failed attempt to install the driver from nvidia.com did not screw anything up so badly that a simple uninstall and reboot cannot fix.
Then install the nvidia driver from the Ubuntu repos:
Go to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers and check the box to enable the restricted drivers for your nvidia card. I would reboot after this also.
Now for the dual monitors, please see these tutorials:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XineramaHowTo
http://www.paralipsis.org/2006/01/en...ama-in-ubuntu/
Before using those tutorials though, open a terminal and run:
This will open up the nvidia settings window. It may detect your dual displays and offer options for configuring them.

And welcome to the LQ forums!

tommcd,

I love you.

After some hacking around in the xorg.conf file, and reading up on a bunch of sources, it came down to these steps, which I document here in the spirit of "Ubuntu" (something entirely new to me especially being from New Jersey) for the sake of some poor sod who is struggling with the same issue.

Here is how I got my dual-display working:

1. System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers
2. Selected the recommended nVidia graphics driver
3. Clicked the OK/Apply or whatever button it's grayed out now for me
4. Opened a terminal
5. typed "sudo nvidia-settings"
6. computer didn't like something that I'd entered into my xorg.conf file, so I had to type "sudo nvidia-xconfig"
7. rebooted
8. typed "sudo nvidia-settings" and an nvidia menu popped up. w00t!
9. Clicked "X Server Display Configuration" (second choice from the top)
10. Clicked on the rectangle on the right, representing my dark monitor
11. Clicked the "Configure.." button
12. Selected "TwinView"
13. Clicked "Apply"
14. My display woke up!
15. Click "Save to X config file"
16. Today is a good day.

Love,
tangoking

I thought that the restricted drivers manager (System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers) would have taken care of configuring the driver for you. Anyway, glad you found how to run nvidia-xconfig.
For reference:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Bi...erHowto/Nvidia
Haha! I am from Philly, so I got a laugh out of that

Glad you got it working!