Adding a second monitor

[Roger]

 From U 10.11 thru to 12.04 and Fedora 14 to 16 I've been using 2 
monitors no problems. X works fine for me.
I have a Geforce 8600gts video card about 3 or more years old which has 
2 slots.
Roger

> I've got used to using 2 monitors from using my laptop and large
> screen to support my lectures.  It's gotten so that I like it so much
> that I use a regular monitor with it at home, and prefer working on it
> over using my (much more capable) desktop.
>
> This is silly.  I've retired, and don't really need a laptop any more.
>   I should just add one or two extra monitors to my desktop, but I
> tried and it failed miserably.
> 1) the existing board had several connectors, so I tried using two of
> them.  No joy, only one would be recognized.
> 2) I tried a card that had been donated to a charity I work for (with
> permission from the manager).  When I tried just putting it in without
> an attached monitor, X would not even start.  I was in a rush, and did
> not try it with a monitor.  It's quite possible the card is broken
> anyway.
> 3) I realized I'm in slightly over my head.
>
> So, given that I have a large PCI-E slot and a regular PCI-X slot
> empty, I'm wondering...
> 1) Should I expect X to manage 2 cards, and if so what should I do
> besides just plugging them in?
> 2) Could the problem have been missing drivers for the added card, and
> if so how should I go about finding them?
>
> I tried this on 11.04, but plan to go to 12.04 soon.
>