Ubuntu 9.10 Dual Head setup

[Fred Roller]

Robert Kiwanuka wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> This is becoming an increasingly disturbing problem. When I try to set 
> up dual head  (from System > Preferences > Display) I run into the 
> following problems:
>
> 1. Whatever the change I make, if I select Apply the screen freezes 
> and the _only_ solution is to power off.
>
> 2. The default is to mirror screens but I want One large desktop. 
> There is seemingly no way to change this default behaviour.
>
> 3. I work at on least three different laptops each of them needing to 
> use  a different second monitor depending on where I take it. For some 
> monitors after selecting the relevant resolutions, it will freeze but, 
> after restarting it will be configured as desired. But for some it 
> insists on mirroring the monitors at boot, which means I cannot use 
> any alternatives!
>
> 4. If I start a laptop  _and then_ connect the second head then go to 
> System> Preferences>Display  to enable it, it _always_ just freezes. 
> Solution is again powering off, which means any work i was doing 
> before that is lost!
>
> 5. Whenever I connect the second head, the resolution of the primary 
> one is automatically modified so that windows no longer fit well on it 
> (and this happens for the secondary one too). In the Display dialog it 
> thus becomes difficult to select the options (Apply/Close). In my case 
> I have to rely on the fact that I know what keyboard shortcut to use 
> in this situation, but what does everyone else do is such cases - I'm 
> assuming that other people have had this as it has been repeated on 
> all my laptops so far.
>
> 6. Sometimes I'm asked if I want to keep the configuration or return 
> to the previous but sometimes not! Why?
>
> 7. I no longer have a good xorg.conf to refer to in order to set what 
> I want with out the GUI interface!
>
> Any ideas on how to sort any of that out? Does anyone have a working 
> xorg.conf where they have manually determined the 
> display/monitor/screen settings. I would rather play with that suffer 
> with the GUI where nothing is certain.
>
> Regards,
>
> Robert
I don't know how applicable this may be but - with similar issues on 
setting up the second monitor (I use the nvidia interface) it turned out 
a need for running the manager as root. i.e.

    gksu gnome-display-properties

then before saving removing the old xorg file (actually changing the 
name, paranoid that way.):

    sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.jic

the removal forces a rewrite with new configs and the changes applied to 
the different monitors I connected.  I eventually edited the menu icon 
properties to run as root so I could use the menu item to make changes.  
Don't know if this will help but at least it could enlighten you to a 
solution.

-- 
Fred
www.fwrgallery.com

"Life is like linux, simple.  If you are fighting it you are doing something wrong."