Configuring TwinView

This describes my TwinView (NVIDIA's dual head support) configuration. My setup:

• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 card (with DVI, VGA, and S-Video outputs)
• Samsung SyncMaster 205BW 20 inch widescreen monitor (with DVI input, running at 1680x1050)
• LG L1715S 17 inch (VGA input only, running at 1280x1024)

For the card I got the latest "legacy" drivers from NVIDIA's Linux drivers page (for my card this is version 9631).

The Samsung is to the left of the LG; I wanted to create a single 2960x1050 workspace (it is also possible to set them up as two different X screens, see this NVIDIA page for that).

What follows is my /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Some important notes:

• instead of using TwinViewOrientation, I simply specify an offset in the MetaModes line:
  Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024 +1680+26, 1680x1050"
  (the +26 is there to make sure the top 26 pixels are clipped on the 2nd screen, not the bottom 26)
• You may have to swap the resolutions (i.e. "1680x1050, 1280x1024 +1680+26" for the above example, depending on which monitor your card sees first)
• Note I don't use the ConnectedMonitor variable, as the docs suggest you can: I only got a "your hardware does not support this configuration" as soon as I put the ConnectedMonitor line in there
• use /sbin/lspci to find the bus ID of your card (for the BusID "PCI:1:0:0" line)

My xorg.conf file:

Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "TwinView Configuration" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" Option "Xinerama" "true" EndSection Section "Files" RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "unix/:7100" EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "glx" Load "extmod" Load "type1" Load "freetype" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes" EndSection # # two monitors # Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Samsung" ModelName "205BW" HorizSync 30.0 - 65.0 VertRefresh 50.0 - 120.0 EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor1" VendorName "LG" ModelName "1725s" HorizSync 30.0 - 65.0 VertRefresh 50.0 - 120.0 EndSection # # the nVidia card # Section "Device" Identifier "NVIDIA" Driver "nvidia" BoardName "nVidia Corporation NV28 [GeForce4 Ti 4200 AGP 8x] rev 161" VendorName "nvidia" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" VideoRam 131072 Option "NvAGP" "3" Option "TwinView" "1" Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024 +1680+26, 1680x1050" Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-65" Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "50-120" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "NVIDIA" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 Modes "1680x1050" "1280x1024" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection