GForce 7300LE and Dual Monitor with Xfce

[rozen]

Hi,

I hope that this question is not a repeat. I did a search but did not find an answer.

I have a Dell Desktop, XPS 410 N, dating from 2007. It has four GB of memory and an GForce 7300 LE graphics card. The graphics card has VGA, DVI, and S-video outputs. My regular monitor is a Dell 2707 WFP with a resolution of 1920x1200. I would like to use an older VGA Monitor which has a resolution of 1024x768 in a dual monitor configuration. I am running Mint 12 and using XFCE as my desktop. I am using the Nvidia accelerated greaphics driver (version 173-updates).


When I hook up my VGA monitor to the VGA output of the graphics card and the Dell monitor to the DVI and turn on the power, the Dell monitor is not apparently being detected (I used xrandr to see only the VGA monitor.). The system runs using the VGA monitor and ignores my better monitor. I guess my question is "How can I tell if my video card is capable of supporting dual monitors?". I have search on the web bu have found contradictory information. Some say if more than one output just hook them up. Others say that the 7300LE is too minimal (cheap) to support dual monitors.

If the card will not support Dual Monitors, can someone suggest a better card to use. I am not into gaming or high performance graphics.

Is there something that I should be doing to force the system to search for and detect an additional monitor? I found no command or configuration option under Xfce that would force such a search.

Any suggestions that helps get a Dual Monitor configuration will be deeply appreciated,

Don

[rozen]

Hi,

I answered my own question. The GForce 7300LE does indeed support Dual Monitors.

I learned that by installing in a separate partition Linux Mint 201204 Xfce 64 bit and, by golly, I was able to run dual monitors. I ran into ssome problems with Debian Xfce however, and so I am still fighting that battle.

I assume that my dual monitor problem came from using the Nvidia propriatory driver. So I deactivated the driver from my Mint 12 system and Dual Monitors still failed to work. That suggests that the difference lies somewhere in the sppace between Debian and Mint. Did I mention that my Mint 12 is 32 bit.

Again, All Suggestions Welcom,

Don