The end of the X movie

That's it,

I finally got my X server configured correctly, with a neat dual screen set-up ! This is a good sign, an evidence :  
~$cat .bash_history | grep xorg | wc -l
...returns "only" 22 entries today...

I have been struggling with the beast for almost two years now. And yes, I have read the manual and all the $*%ø tutorials on the topic; with no hope. I even gave up my free mind an downloaded the nvidia closed driver, tried the graphical configuration interface with very limited results. After hours of trials and errors, could eventually get the $£µ%ù dual screen working until the next reboot...

Finally, I moved again (my last post was also about moving 3 years ago), while unpacking in the new flat, I found the nice and brand new screen VGA cable and I had a flash, damn it !

My  video card is a nvidia geforce 5700 FX (from mathusalem), with a double output, a DVI plug and an standard analog VGA plug. I have a huyndai 17' L70S imagequest, plugged on the VGA and a LG 24' plugged as DVI. There was the problem ! The %µù*$^  DVI was switching to sleep mode and the £ù*%µ driver would eventually forget about it, simply considering it was disconnected and somehow switching only on the VGA screen, ... This is the reason why I could get it working but during limited time and in awkward circumstances.

It took time, but I had finally the idea to come back to the old school analog cables and bought a DVI_to_VGA plug and connected the two screens as VGA. Do you know what ? It worked like a charm in few minutes.

I choose the "separate X screen" configuration instead of a real dual screen. I prefer to have two independent X screen, to allocate applications and to have proper screen calibration set-up (through the nvidia-settings application).

As a result, my first screen :0:0 is in 1900x1080 and the screen :0:1 is in 1280x1024.
I am not using Xinerama (I don't need to extend some applications from one screen to another.

Screen :0:0 is the wide and new one for photo editing and work, the smaller one :0:1 is for monitoring, parallel videos, music player, chat, etc...

Bellow is my file, quite simple indeed, probably not perfectly optimised, but it works !

Next post is about my awsome nerdy conky configuration...

~$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# relative positions of the two screens, my big screen (screen 0), has absolute position x,y of 1280,0

# screen 1, is located on the left of screen 0
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 1280 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" LeftOf "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

# I disabled Xinerama, I didn't want to extend my desktop on a large virtual screen, I prefer to keep separated screens, it's also better for calibration I think
Section "ServerFlags"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

# mouse stuff, I hate mac, and yes 3 buttons is cool, I wish I had more
Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

# need to type, this is not an iPad !
Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

# wide screen, main screen
Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "LG C243"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

# smaller screen, side screen
Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "IQT L70S"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 79.0
    VertRefresh     60.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

#video card for the first screen, first output
Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Videocard0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce FX 5700"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          0
EndSection

#video card for the second screen, second output
Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Videocard1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce FX 5700"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          1
EndSection

# allocation to video cards to screen, depth and meta modes, kind of auto mode, it works like this, I will not fine tune more...
Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Videocard0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection
 # allocation to video cards to screen, depth and meta modes, kind of auto mode, it works like this, I will not fine tune more...
Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Videocard1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection