The Twilight X Zone

How very very very very strange! I hooked up my new 17in LCD monitor after zapping my last one (nope, I still haven't picked up any fabric softener!) and hoped against hope I could do a dual screen display with both monitors at 1280x1024 (my previous 15in LCD only went to 1024x768). But just like before, X fought me tooth and nail. This time it was even worse, as no sooner would a window begin to paint on my new monitor than the whole system would hang, requiring the ol' reset button.

As a side note, I really hate new computers without a reset button. My work DELL just has a "power" button, but even that is more of a suggestion to Windows that it is time to shutdown. As a developer, who tends to put their machines through hell and back, it can be a real drag. I keep having to pull the power plug on it, as it just won't shutdown! But the boxes I build myself will always have a real power on/off and a reset button.

I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, to no avail. I settled in on the same old 1024x768 dual setup, but that was just so annoying. So I used even more Google-fu, and found a very nice entry here, in the Gentoo wiki. This lead me to a very comprehensive xorg.conf file here.

Of course, none of this really helped exactly. It's all Linux, and not quite the same video card, etc etc. So back to more tweaking. And somehow, miracle of miracles, I even ended up with a working dual 1280x1024 setup! And to be honest, I have no idea what I did to get it to work. I took out some stuff, especially the Virtual keyword, and let X figure out what it needed and I think that really helped. Either that or going to 16 bit color mode. But as I don't do any real graphics intensive stuff on my PC-BSD machine (no movies or games, and very little photo editing), I'm perfectly satisfied with 16 bit color. I may try to go back to 24 bit and see if that was the problem, but let me savor my victory for a few days before I do that, okay?-)

Anyway, here is my currently working xorg.conf. This is using Xorg, v6.9 on an ATI x850 dual head card with 128mb RAM. I have the DVI connector hooked to my 17in Envision LCD monitor (via a VGA adapter) and the VGA hooked up to my Samsung SyncMaster 997DF monitor. And it works even! Well, the DRI stuff doesn't work, so I'll have to look into that.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier     "Radeon Dual Monitor"
Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
Screen         "Screen1" LeftOf "Screen0"
InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
ModulePath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/bitstream-vera"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/dejavu"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/freefonts"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/omega"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/urw"
FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts"
EndSection


Section "Module"
Load  "extmod"
Load  "glx"
Load  "dri"
Load  "dbe"
Load  "type1"
Load  "freetype"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Keyboard0"
Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Mouse0"
Driver      "mouse"
Option	    "Protocol" "auto"
Option	    "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
Option      "Buttons" "5"
Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
#DisplaySize	  310   230	# mm
Identifier   "LCD-Mon"
VendorName   "EPI"
ModelName    "EN7410e"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
#	HorizSync    31.0 - 83.0
#	VertRefresh  56.0 - 75.0
Option	    "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
#DisplaySize	  350 260	# mm
Identifier   "CRT-Mon"
VendorName   "SAM"
ModelName    "SyncMaster"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
#	HorizSync    30.0 - 96.0
#	VertRefresh  50.0 - 160.0
Option	    "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier  "ATI Port 1"
Driver      "ati"
VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName   "R480 [Radeon X850Pro]"
BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"

# MergedFB options
Option     "MergedFB" "True"
Option     "CRT2Position"       "RightOf"
Option     "MetaModes" "1280x1024-1280x1024"
Option     "RenderAccel" "True"        	# []
Option     "DMAForXv" "True"           	# []
Option     "MergedXineramaCRT2IsScreen0" "True"

Option "VideoOverlay"   "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay"  "off"
Option "MergedXinerama" "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier  "ATI Port 2"
Driver      "ati"
VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName   "R480 [Radeon X850Pro]"
BusID       "PCI:1:0:1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device     "ATI Port 2"
Monitor    "CRT-Mon"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth     16
Modes   "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device     "ATI Port 1"
Monitor    "LCD-Mon"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth     16
Modes   "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

# Make it so other users can use DRI
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection