The company just bought our department brand hooked up PC’s that include ATI Radeon dual output graphics cards with massive monitors. This is probably the only time I’d willingly admit that Windows came out ahead, as I spent a good 2 days trying to get my dual monitors to work with Ubuntu. I finally got it figured out and I’m embarrassed to say that the answer was in front of my the whole time — a fucking GUI! Anywho, those of you who are having trouble with this as well, here’s what I did to make it work:
My setup:
- Dell Vostro 200, Dual Core Intel CPUs, 2 Gb RAM
- ATI Radeon HD 2400 dual output graphics card (both monitors plugged into card)
- Two Dell 17” monitors
So first, shimmy over to http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html and select your distro and card model, and download the file to your desktop.
In Terminal, chmod +x ati-driver-installer-<version>.run
Select Linux x86 installation, automatic
After the installation is complete, run:
sudo aticonfig –initial
Reboot.
After reboot, run fglrxinfo and you should get something like this describing your card:
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO
OpenGL version string: 2.1.7537 Release
At this point you probably see that both monitors are enabled, but are mirroring each other. If you don’t, you might need to manually active the second:
sudo aticonfig –query-monitor
Use the output of that command and run:
sudo ati-config –enable-monitor=<result1>,<result2>
Replace result1 and result2 with the output of the first command. Possible results are: none, crt1, crt2, lvds, tv, fmds1, tmds2
If the enable works, make it permanent:
sudo aticonfig –force-monitor=<result1>,<result2>
When both your monitors are up (whether they look how you want or not), in your GNOME gui, go to Applications > ATI Catalyst Control Center. This is where you configure how you want your dual monitors to act.
In Display Manager, set the dropdown to two monitors and change the Display Mode to “Big Desktop” — this will enable both monitors as one long desktop that you can drag your mouse and windows between. You can also go ahead and set your resolution.
And there you go — easy dual monitor setup for Ubuntu 7.10!
UPDATE: Major issues with graphics after I upgraded to 8.10 – I found these instructions which worked:
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