Help installing a second monitor on Xubuntu 15.04?

Gregg Bell · 10-29-2015, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emerson

Leave it for now. I will install Mint in a virtual machine tomorrow and figure out how to install kernel source.

Hey Emerson. Thanks very much but I feel bad about putting you to all this trouble. Plus I'm afraid that I won't be able to handle all the things I'll have to do on my end. (That post from Shadow kind of spooked me.) I'm really cool with letting this lie. (A friend of mine gave me a monitor when he moved so now I have two. I don't need the second monitor. It would just be a luxury.)

maples · 10-30-2015, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey Emerson. Thanks very much but I feel bad about putting you to all this trouble. Plus I'm afraid that I won't be able to handle all the things I'll have to do on my end. (That post from Shadow kind of spooked me.) I'm really cool with letting this lie. (A friend of mine gave me a monitor when he moved so now I have two. I don't need the second monitor. It would just be a luxury.)

If you want to use two monitors, I would suggest getting a cheap internal graphics card (with dual outptus, of course!). Go look around Amazon, find a few that you like, then Google each of them to see if they're compatible with Linux.

Emerson · 10-30-2015, 07:25 AM

OK, there is nothing spooky about this.

First, you have to open the Software Center or Manager or whatever it is called and enable source repositories.

Then issue following commands in terminal (while in your home directory):

Code:

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev
mkdir src
cd src
apt-get source linux-image-$(uname -r)

This will download and unpack kernel sources into current directory.
Now type cd linux and hit the Tab key, followed by Enter. You should be in the source directory now.
Proceed to edit the source file.

Code:

nano drivers/usb/misc/sisusbvga/sisusb.c

OK, from here I was thinking it is going to be easy sailing.
NOT. Mint I'm using has no /proc/config.gz. It is essential to have it to build anything in kernel sources, make defconfig will not cut it.

Conclusion. Ubuntu is not friendly distro when it comes to tinkering.

I will leave this post here in case someone wants to correct me and knows a way how to obtain .config file for running kernel.

Gregg Bell · 10-30-2015, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maples

If you want to use two monitors, I would suggest getting a cheap internal graphics card (with dual outptus, of course!). Go look around Amazon, find a few that you like, then Google each of them to see if they're compatible with Linux.

Thanks maples, but it's like everything is Windows and Mac. (I ran into the same problem trying to use one of those usb wireless adapters--a nightmare.)

Gregg Bell · 10-30-2015, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emerson

OK, there is nothing spooky about this.

First, you have to open the Software Center or Manager or whatever it is called and enable source repositories.

Then issue following commands in terminal (while in your home directory):

Code:

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev
mkdir src
cd src
apt-get source linux-image-$(uname -r)

This will download and unpack kernel sources into current directory.
Now type cd linux and hit the Tab key, followed by Enter. You should be in the source directory now.
Proceed to edit the source file.

Code:

nano drivers/usb/misc/sisusbvga/sisusb.c

OK, from here I was thinking it is going to be easy sailing.
NOT. Mint I'm using has no /proc/config.gz. It is essential to have it to build anything in kernel sources, make defconfig will not cut it.

Conclusion. Ubuntu is not friendly distro when it comes to tinkering.

I will leave this post here in case someone wants to correct me and knows a way how to obtain .config file for running kernel.

Thanks Emerson. What about this?

https://askubuntu.com/questions/6268...nitors-in-xfce

Emerson · 10-30-2015, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Emerson. What about this?

https://askubuntu.com/questions/6268...nitors-in-xfce

This is after you have your hardware recognized.

Shadow_7 · 10-30-2015, 04:41 PM

You can remove the need for software drivers for some things with a little bit of hardware. No need to hassle with wifi if you have a stand alone router that you can ethernet into and provides wifi. I've used asus rt-n12 and rt-n16's for that in the past. And I've used a 2nd laptop to act as an ethernet to wireless bridge. Various dual-ish monitor setups with vnc or dmx. And on and on.

Sometimes it takes a good six months for your hardware to be supported (by linux) after it was "invented" and released to the public. And then another six or more months for your distro to have it setup out of the box. I got my hp stream 11 last black friday. And as of July this year there was a firmware version available that was "stable" to use the wifi for long durations. Meanwhile mainline bsd doesn't yet support the GPU on that thing. And windows was unable to locate the driver for the usb to ethernet dongle.

Gregg Bell · 11-08-2015, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow_7

You can remove the need for software drivers for some things with a little bit of hardware. No need to hassle with wifi if you have a stand alone router that you can ethernet into and provides wifi. I've used asus rt-n12 and rt-n16's for that in the past. And I've used a 2nd laptop to act as an ethernet to wireless bridge. Various dual-ish monitor setups with vnc or dmx. And on and on.

Sometimes it takes a good six months for your hardware to be supported (by linux) after it was "invented" and released to the public. And then another six or more months for your distro to have it setup out of the box. I got my hp stream 11 last black friday. And as of July this year there was a firmware version available that was "stable" to use the wifi for long durations. Meanwhile mainline bsd doesn't yet support the GPU on that thing. And windows was unable to locate the driver for the usb to ethernet dongle.

Thanks Shadow. Went through something similar with trying to find a usb wireless adapter. Never did find one, even with all kinds of expert help. Oh well, that goes with Linux I suppose.