Mint struggles with twin GT710 cards

[DoctorPaul]

Just tried to enable the three monitors using the NVIDIA utility.

It says that I have to save the X configuration file and restart the X-server - but no matter where I try to save it (/etc, my home directory, an NTFS volume on another drive) it says that it cannot open the file for writing.

Hmm, just idly tried dragging one of the monitors to a new position on the grid layout and an Enable Xinerama checkbox appeared which I swear wasn't there before!

Still can't save the config file, so I can't actually apply the setting

[roblm]

Select the first disabled screen and then select New X Screen in the Configuration window. Repeat this for the other two disabled screens. If the Xinerama option is not visible, then click the Advanced button.

[roblm]

I just checked Nvidia Settings in Mint 21 and there appears to be a bug when trying to save to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. I'm trying to figure it out. Possibly a manual configuration will be needed.

[roblm]

I found a solution. Use this command to make the nvidia-polkit file executable:

Code: Select all

sudo chmod +x /usr/share/screen-resolution-extra/nvidia-polkit

[DoctorPaul]

Hi,

I found a work-round by previewing the conf file and then using copy-paste into the file opened as su in /etc/X11/

On restart my desktop background appeared on all 6 monitors (jumbled as the monitor layout needs updating) but then all the screens went blank and I'm left with nothing but a cursor, no bottom panel at all.

I've been able to open a terminal window and launch Firefox, now to see how to launch the NVIDIA utility from the command line....

Cinnamon seems completely broken, the Firefox window has no decoration and can't be dragged across the desktop.

[DoctorPaul]

OK, rescued that by deleting xorg.conf from the terminal and rebooting.

Will try the chmod and have another tinker with the NVIDIA utility.

[DoctorPaul]

Tried activating the top 3 monitors and was able to save the config.

On restart Cinnamon says it has crashed and is in fallback mode. I can move the cursor up onto a top screen but can't drag a window onto it.

If I enable Xinerama then I'm back to blank screens.

Time to check out MATE / Xcfe maybe

[roblm]

MATE or Xfce should work better because they don't require graphics hardware acceleration of the desktop environment.

Or you can replace one of the Nvidia cards with an AMD card. The Nvidia driver can still be used and the amdgpu driver will drive the AMD GPU. No other manual configuration should be needed.

[DoctorPaul]

Interesting, I had always thought that mixing GPUs was a "bad thing"

These cards cost about £60 each and offer 4 HDMI outputs - I don't game, just need lots of screen estate. I'm not going to start searching for an AMD card to solve this - I say again that the open source drivers have no problem at all with the setup, it's just that the performance is like treacle.

I'll grab some other distros and give them a spin.

[DoctorPaul]

Back again

I ordered 3 more monitors for a racing sim rig and they turned out to be identical to one of the sets on my 3x2 setup so I swapped things over so that all 6 monitors are identical - no change (open source drivers see all 6 but is unusably slow, NVIDIA drivers only see the bottom row).

When I look at the NVIDIA X server admin both GPUs are detected but only one "display" shows up. The 3 monitors are there, but flagged as disabled.

I will try to find the time to upload some details in case anyone can advise regarding X server tweaking...