Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

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runbei

Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by runbei »

I've seen no authoritative guide to installing dual monitors in Mint 12, 13, or 14 Mate or Cinnamon. Tried 'em all.

Simply using the Monitors function makes the Panel disappear, and the only forum threads that hint at a solution involve a nightmare of complex config possible solutions.

(This is truly weird. Fuduntu installs the monitors flawlessly from the Monitor function without any manual xorg configuration needed. Why can't Mint do this? It belies the claim that Mint is user-friendly and requires little configuration. There are a lot of posts on this forum about dual monitors that aren't answered - but I'll try. Thanks for any help.

I want to proceed carefully, without breaking anything. Here's the output of inxi -Fxz:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: fatso Kernel: 3.5.0-17-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.7.2) Desktop: N/A Distro: Linux Mint 14 Nadia
Machine:   Mobo: TAR model: TA790GX A2+ Bios: American Megatrends version: 080014 date: 06/23/2010
CPU:       Quad core AMD Phenom 9850 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 20002.7 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1250.00 MHz 2: 1250.00 MHz 3: 1250.00 MHz 4: 1250.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] bus-ID: 01:00.0 
           X.org: 1.13.0 drivers: (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) FAILED: nouveau tty size: 80x24 Advanced Data: N/A for root 
Audio:     Card-1: NVIDIA High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1 Sound: ALSA ver: 1.0.25
           Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Card-3: Logitech ClearChat Pro USB driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 046d:0a0b
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller 
           driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e800 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 800.2GB (12.4% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD1600SD size: 160.0GB temp: 38C 
           2: id: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD6400AADS size: 640.1GB temp: 36C 
Partition: ID: / size: 11G used: 3.6G (35%) fs: ext4 ID: /home size: 20G used: 197M (2%) fs: ext4 
           ID: swap-1 size: 1.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 31.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 49.0 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 148 Uptime: 21 min Memory: 421.9/4035.7MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.7.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4 
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Fnatte

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by Fnatte »

I'd also like this. I cannot get Cinnamon to work with 2 monitors using 2 graphic cards.
Now that I've tried lots of drivers and configs I'm sadly moving along to Ubuntu (once again).
It's a shame really, Mint seemed really nice.

I hope this issue gets fixed soon!
bigj231

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by bigj231 »

Are you using the proprietary graphics drivers? I don't think the open source ones support dual monitors.
And it is possible, I have used dual and triple monitors on my Intel laptop.
bigj231

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by bigj231 »

Fnatte wrote:I'd also like this. I cannot get Cinnamon to work with 2 monitors using 2 graphic cards.
Now that I've tried lots of drivers and configs I'm sadly moving along to Ubuntu (once again).
It's a shame really, Mint seemed really nice.

I hope this issue gets fixed soon!
2 graphics cards? Like SLI? I don't think the second card puts out any video. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's just used for extra processing power.
Fnatte

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by Fnatte »

bigj231 wrote:
Fnatte wrote:I'd also like this. I cannot get Cinnamon to work with 2 monitors using 2 graphic cards.
Now that I've tried lots of drivers and configs I'm sadly moving along to Ubuntu (once again).
It's a shame really, Mint seemed really nice.

I hope this issue gets fixed soon!
2 graphics cards? Like SLI? I don't think the second card puts out any video. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's just used for extra processing power.
I can't argue against you cause I'm not sure but, each of my graphics cards has a monitor connected to it. I thought that implied that each card then is responsible for output to its monitor. And I'm not even sure that I've managed to enable SLI.
My understanding is that using 2 graphics cards and using SLI is not the same.
bigj231

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by bigj231 »

I haven't seen a system with 2 graphics cards not in SLI, so I don't know how that works. Does one of you graphics cards have 2 outputs on it? I run my dual monitor Windows system on 1 card.
Fnatte

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by Fnatte »

bigj231 wrote:I haven't seen a system with 2 graphics cards not in SLI, so I don't know how that works. Does one of you graphics cards have 2 outputs on it? I run my dual monitor Windows system on 1 card.
Yeah, they do have 2 DVI outputs each (2x GTX 560 Ti). It was stupid of me not to try one card with both monitors. But it worked very well with Windows.
I've almost completed my Ubuntu installation, so I'll try my luck there.
Fnatte

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by Fnatte »

After having the same issue with Ubuntu, I tried connecting the monitors to the same graphics card. With success!
So I reinstalled Mint and it works aswell.

Not sure why but, with the monitors connected to different graphics cards, the TwinView option gets greyed out.
With the monitors on the same card, it is available.

Thanks bigj231!
bigj231

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by bigj231 »

Like I said, I've never seen a system with 2 graphics cards that weren't in SLI with all monitors on one card. I don't see why you'd need the power of 2 560Ti's in Linux anyway. (unless you're rendering stuff, but that's a whole different topic)
EDIT: Still no report from the OP though. Let us know if that doesn't work for you.
ak0ska

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by ak0ska »

I'm also quite curious about setting up multiple displays, didn't really find anything useful on this subject. I have to add that I recenty decided to give Linux a chance on my home desktop computer, so maybe I'm a little inexperienced.

My first issue was using a Live USB, I encountered the problem when one gets a black screen after booting, and described as a common problem when someone has a Radeon card. However, in my case the problem was that my TV was also hooked on the computer, and it's not full hd, so it only support something like 25Hz at 1920*1080. My monitor supports this resolution but not at this refresh rate, and since the default is to clone displays, it only came with a warning that I should switch resolution/refresh rate. It took me 2 days to think about checking my TV, which showed the correct picture. But maybe that is my fault.

I finally installed the system with my TV dsiconnected, and everything went smooth, but now I want to set up the TV as secondary display. When I connect it, it automatically becomes primary, meaning that all panels will move over there, and I have no option to change that in Preferences > Displays.

I use the default open source drivers, tv is on DVI-0 and the display is on DVI-1.
Output for inxi -Fxz:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: ak0ska-desktop Kernel: 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.7.2) 
           Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 14 Nadia
Machine:   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P5K PRO version: Rev 1.xx Bios: American Megatrends version: 1001 date: 03/18/2008
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core2 Duo CPU E8400 (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 12023.1 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1998.00 MHz 2: 1998.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Barts PRO [Radeon HD 6800 Series] bus-ID: 01:00.0 
           X.Org: 1.13.0 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1200@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD BARTS GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 9.0 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Barts HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6800 Series] driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
           Card-2: Intel 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.25
Network:   Card-1: Marvell 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: sky2 ver: 1.30 port: c800 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter usb-ID: 045e:0719
           IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 5142.1GB (0.1% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HD103SJ size: 1000.2GB temp: 37C 
           2: id: /dev/sdb model: SAMSUNG_HD103UJ size: 1000.2GB temp: 32C 3: id: /dev/sdc model: ST3500320AS size: 500.1GB temp: 36C 
           4: id: /dev/sdd model: WDC_WD6400AAKS size: 640.1GB temp: 38C 5: id: /dev/sde model: WDC_WD20EARX size: 2000.4GB temp: 35C 
           6: USB id: /dev/sdf model: Flash_Disk size: 1.0GB temp: 0C 
Partition: ID: / size: 20G used: 4.2G (23%) fs: ext3 ID: /boot size: 99M used: 34M (36%) fs: ext3 
           ID: swap-1 size: 2.16GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0C mobo: 43.0C gpu: 70.5 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 1928 psu: 0 sys-1: 1962 sys-2: 0 
Info:      Processes: 144 Uptime: 1:21 Memory: 1183.5/3954.1MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.7.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4 
bigj231

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by bigj231 »

Install the FGLRX drivers and see if you can change your displays around then. You can do that through the additional drivers utility or by manually installing them.
ak0ska

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by ak0ska »

I followed the steps in this guide: http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu ... tion_Guide
And also some steps that I found on this forum somewhere.

So I uninstalled the the open source drivers, reboot, install proprietary drivers, run aticonfig, reboot. At first it seemed good, but I couldn't really set up the displays using the catalyst control center the way i wanted too.
And after a while, the system somehow started to draw more taskbars, in the end I had 4.
That's when I went back to the open source drivers, and after some reading I managed to set up the displays using the xrandr command line tool. Now I managed to set up my monitor as primary display, resolutions, refresh rate and positioning as I wanted.

It's almost perfect, except that there's a weird phenomenon: the TV, that is positioned left of the main screen, somehow "overlaps" onto the main display for like 4-5 pixels, so when I have a windows fullscreen on the tv, I see the edge of the window on my main.
bircoe

Re: Mint 14 Cinnamon Dual Monitors - Not possible?

Post by bircoe »

bigj231 wrote:Like I said, I've never seen a system with 2 graphics cards that weren't in SLI with all monitors on one card. I don't see why you'd need the power of 2 560Ti's in Linux anyway. (unless you're rendering stuff, but that's a whole different topic)
EDIT: Still no report from the OP though. Let us know if that doesn't work for you.
I run a triple monitor setup at work on a Dell Optiplex 960, it has a pair of ATI Cards with Dual DVI out, one card has two monitors while the other card has one monitor attached, works a treat.

Shame I have to run Windows at work... the only annoyance is from time to time the ATI drivers forget that I don't want to run in Cross Fire mode, running in Cross Fire limits the monitor count to 2.
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