Dual monitor possible?

[Daniel Goldsmith]

On 10/5/07, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/10/2007, Ashley Benton <meggalen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think it is build in the motherboard, there is no card just a pink thing
> > (sorry don't know the name) plug into the motherboard
>
> Ah. Now, forgive me, but if you mentioned that before, I didn't notice
> it. Which is a shame, because I think it's an absolutely critical bit
> of information.
>
<snip>
> It sounds to me like that's what's happening here. On such machines it
> is, as far as I know, *impossible* to use the integrated graphics
> /and/ an additional graphics card simultaneously.
> Sorry about that. It's a pain, but alas, multiple monitor support is a
> fairly new thing on the PC - it's less than a decade old as a
> mass-market thing. Macs, of course, have been doing it for twenty
> years.

Absolutely *not* the case. It is difficult, granted, but it is not impossible.

In the specific case being discussed here, i would suggest that the OP
would go into their BIOS settings and poke around looking for a
Settings Option which will allow the system to use the OnBoard or
Legacy video system in preference to the nvidia card.

As others have pointed out - Ubuntu is spectacularly poor, even among
linux distributions, at handling dual monitors, particularly when an
internal graphics card is being used. There are dozens of outstanding
and ignored bugs on the issue.

> I think you're stuck, and by the sound of it, unless you're short of
> RAM, you'd probably be better off with your built-in graphics. I'd
> suggest buying a more modern nVidia card with twin monitor outputs. I
> expect you'd pick one up for the price of a beer on eBay.

I call rubbish. Unless there is a specific BIOS issue preventing the
OP from accessing both cards, there is no reason to abandon the
available equipment.

regards,

Daniel