smert.net

Fedora Core 9 has been out for a while and I haven’t seen any decent dual monitor configurations. Of course this might have changed in the last month and a half but I doubt it. FC9 comes with the latest Xorg Server which as of this writing is 1.4.99.905. It was until very recently that many people were downgrading their Xorg version to the one included with FC8 because the ABI was so new that NVidia hadn’t released a driver yet. Also in this version of Fedora is one second X and kernel-based modesetting. The Intel driver that I use has been updated so when I decided to switch I found that my previous xorg.conf repetitively caused X to crash.

There are some limitations with the driver and my configuration. Previously I was using the i810 driver which is now deprecated. Now I’m forced to use the Intel driver which seems to have different limitations. I couldn’t get the max resolution of both screens any larger than 2048×2048. My main desktop monitor is 1280×1024 (left of) and my laptop resolution is 1024×768 putting them side by side would show a portion of the desktop monitor on the laptop screen. This was frustrating and I almost ditched FC9 because of it. My work around was to simply stack them on top of each other. Since I had to do that there was a steep learning curve adjusting to moving my mouse between the two screens. Periodically the update manager will display a message on my laptop screen (bottom) which is partially cut off because that screen is extended to the right of it (to match my desktop monitor). The last thing I’m noting is that the previous xorg.conf allowed for me to have two separate screens and now It is just one large one. While it is nice to be able to drag a window between the two screens, programs who automatically center them selves require me to move them each time.

Here is my working configuration.

# Xorg configuration created by pyxf86config

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		0 "0 Default Screen"
	InputDevice	"Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"0 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
	Driver		"intel"
	Option		"Monitor-LVDS" "0 Generic Monitor"
	Option		"Monitor-VGA" "1 Generic Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"0 Generic Monitor"
	Option		"DPMS"
	Option		"Below" "1 Generic Monitor"
	Option		"Position" "0 1025"
	HorizSync	28-51
	VertRefresh	43-60
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"1 Generic Monitor"
	Option		"PreferredMode" "1280x1024"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"0 Default Screen"
	Device		"0 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
	Monitor		"0 Generic Monitor"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
	Virtual 4096 4096
EndSection

Here is my old xorg.conf.

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf(5) manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Keyboard0"
	Driver		"kbd"
	Option		"XkbModel"		"pc105"
	Option		"XkbLayout"		"us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"0 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
	Driver		"i810"
	BusID		"PCI:0:2:0"
	Option		"MonitorLayout"		"CRT,LFP"
	Option		"DevicePresence"	"true"
	Option		"UseFBDev"		"true"
	Screen		0
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"1 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
	Driver		"i810"
	BusID 		"PCI:0:2:0"
	Option		"DevicePresence"	"true"
	Option		"UseFBDev"		"true"
	Screen		1
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"0 Generic Monitor"
	Option		"DPMS"
	HorizSync	28-51
	VertRefresh	43-60
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"1 Generic Monitor"
	Option		"DPMS"
	HorizSync	28-51
	VertRefresh	43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"0 Default Screen"
	Device		"0 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
	Monitor		"0 Generic Monitor"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"1 Default Screen"
	Device		"1 Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
	Monitor		"1 Generic Monitor"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1280x1024 1024x768"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		0 "0 Default Screen"
	Screen		1 "1 Default Screen" LeftOf "0 Default Screen"
	InputDevice	"Keyboard0"		"CoreKeyboard"
EndSection