Argh, Dual Head Issues (mostly ranting)

Del · 13-December-04, 11:36 PM

(First few paragraphs are ranting, see bottom for actual questions)

A couple of the guys at work gave me a pile of old computer parts, including 2 15" monitors, and an old video card like one I already had (S3 Virge DX/GX). Naturally the only logical thing to do was to put the two cards in, and the two 15s on either side of the 17 I already ran.

Win 98se found them, and started all three monitors right up. No problems, worked great!

RedHat 8.0 (the usual OS of this machine) however had other ideas. After much reading and tweaking of XF86Config, I gave up and tried another, newwer distro, Knoppix (hdinstalled, some tweaks). No go there, when XF86Config (and XF86Config-4) were modified for multi-head, all monitors were blank. Okay, try another one, right? Mandrake10 gave me the same issues it always has, installs okay but never, ever boots... Try Fedora Core 2, same problem as with RH8. Install Damn Small and then apt-get a proper XFree, all monitors blank. I even gave Gentoo a stab, I just don't have that much patience

Finally, I install Blag 10k, and things start looking up. Install is smooth, configurator thing probes vid cards and monitors correctly. Hell, Gnome even has a tab in Display for dual monitors (by this time I'm down to one S3 and my Radeon 7000). Change everything, restart X and... X just keeps restarting. Over and over, monitors showing vid card info, then blank (which is farther than I got with anything else).

It's almost enough to make a guy go back to windoze.

Has anyone actually had any luck getting more than one display to work on Linux? Think maybe my old, cheap S3 vid cards the problem?

As a side note, this Soyo Dragon (333 I think) Platinum is about to meet my boot. Randomly it just won't POST after a reboot, and I have to sit and wait 2 minutes to 3 hours before it'll fire up again. Not a heat issue, already cleaned/changed HSF and paste, and made sure the RAM and Northy aren't overheating either. I'll never buy another Soyo product again.

Cyno01 · 14-December-04, 12:07 AM

Multiple heads is enough of a PITA with windows, i dont know if theres anyone here whos enough of a linux pimp to be of much help.

13-December-04, 11:36 PM	#1 (permalink)
Del Apex Master Tech Apprentice Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: San Berdoo, CA Posts: 270	Argh, Dual Head Issues (mostly ranting) (First few paragraphs are ranting, see bottom for actual questions) A couple of the guys at work gave me a pile of old computer parts, including 2 15" monitors, and an old video card like one I already had (S3 Virge DX/GX). Naturally the only logical thing to do was to put the two cards in, and the two 15s on either side of the 17 I already ran. Win 98se found them, and started all three monitors right up. No problems, worked great! RedHat 8.0 (the usual OS of this machine) however had other ideas. After much reading and tweaking of XF86Config, I gave up and tried another, newwer distro, Knoppix (hdinstalled, some tweaks). No go there, when XF86Config (and XF86Config-4) were modified for multi-head, all monitors were blank. Okay, try another one, right? Mandrake10 gave me the same issues it always has, installs okay but never, ever boots... Try Fedora Core 2, same problem as with RH8. Install Damn Small and then apt-get a proper XFree, all monitors blank. I even gave Gentoo a stab, I just don't have that much patience Finally, I install Blag 10k, and things start looking up. Install is smooth, configurator thing probes vid cards and monitors correctly. Hell, Gnome even has a tab in Display for dual monitors (by this time I'm down to one S3 and my Radeon 7000). Change everything, restart X and... X just keeps restarting. Over and over, monitors showing vid card info, then blank (which is farther than I got with anything else). It's almost enough to make a guy go back to windoze. Has anyone actually had any luck getting more than one display to work on Linux? Think maybe my old, cheap S3 vid cards the problem? As a side note, this Soyo Dragon (333 I think) Platinum is about to meet my boot. Randomly it just won't POST after a reboot, and I have to sit and wait 2 minutes to 3 hours before it'll fire up again. Not a heat issue, already cleaned/changed HSF and paste, and made sure the RAM and Northy aren't overheating either. I'll never buy another Soyo product again. __________________ --Go away, or I'll replace you with a very small shell script--

14-December-04, 12:07 AM	#2 (permalink)
Cyno01 Apex Tech God Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Whitewater, WI Posts: 3,869	Multiple heads is enough of a PITA with windows, i dont know if theres anyone here whos enough of a linux pimp to be of much help. __________________ Facebook me!

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