[xubuntu-users] Newb to xubuntu.

[Piskie]

On 26/04/12 20:31, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 10:30 AM, Piskie<ub.untu at btinternet.com>  wrote:
>> On 26/04/12 16:54, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>>> I've been running Ubuntu since Warty.  I'm not happy with unity.  I
>>> tried the xfce and xubuntu logins and like them fine -- I'm not even
>>> clear on what's different between them.
>>>
>>> Thing is, I'm dual-headed on my Ubuntu laptop with the "monitor" gnome
>>> gizmo, and will be soon on my desktop.  I need help with that in xfce.
>>>
>> If you are meaning what I think you are - I installed arandr and used that
>> to set my two monitors up with nouveau.
> Seems like you understand me right.  I just had the guts of this
> machine replaced because the old ones died and were really old anyway,
> did not pay much attention.  As near as I can tell, I've got nVidia,
> GeForce 8400GS, so the same thing may work for me.  I really know next
> to nothing about video beyond analog VGA, and this card has a VGA
> output, but also a DVI.  That's how I plan to go dual-head.
>
> Thing is I see some nouveau-related things in synaptic, but I'm not so
> sure if there's a GUI among them and which one it is.
>
> Also, I keep the machine in the garage to keep noise down, and my
> workstation is in an adjacent room.  Is there any limit on DVI cable
> length I should know about?  With the current setup I'm probably going
> to want 20 feet or so.
>
>
To check graphics card run this from a terminal

lspci |grep VGA


I have GeForce 8500 GT here - VGA and DVI as well.

Nouveau is the default graphics driver.

The GUI I used to setup the two monitors is the arandr package I 
referred to.

I set the monitors up as I wanted them, applied it to check, saved the 
settings and added it to start up.

You could install the nvidia driver for it if you wished and use 
nvidia-settings to set up twinview.

No idea about DVI cable lengths I'm afraid

If you want further help then ask.