Dual Screen Output Issue

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mort

Dual Screen Output Issue

Post by mort »

Hi Folks... :D I'm not new to Mint... I've been using it as my primary OS for over two years (Opensuse and others before it) and I've now managed to convert a fair few people to Mint from M$ including some technophobes :mrgreen:

However... After using the mint forum successfully to solve issues I've come up blank (probably due to the way I'm searching :oops: ) on a couple of issues... I wondered if anyone had some ideas...

I recently checked out the Mint 7 Main Edition after happily using Mint 6 XFCE... It was nice but I've gotten used to how quick and easy XFCE is to use... So I moved onto M7 XFCE and I'm quite happy with it... Apart from my dual display... I'm using an old Tosh Tecra S1 Laptop which has served me well (apart from a few HDD over the years)... The display will clone itself to the second monitor (an old iiyama 15") but I can't seem to find out how to stretch one display across the two screens anymore... :? Works fine on M7 Main Edition using Gnomes controls...

I also installed M7 XFCE on an old Compaq SFF (intel chipset) desktop for a friend... Fantastic, runs far better than expected... But no sound... You hear the built in speaker chirp a shutdown sound but it reports that GStreamer is unable to find any suitable sound devices... (according to my friend (must figure out remote desktops :!: ) It worked with M$ before I wiped it for Mint... :?

Any thoughts folks and thanx in advance for any advice :wink:
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.
Husse

Re: Dual Screen Output Issue

Post by Husse »

The sound problem (a lspci would be nice) might be that there is a modem that's turned off and that gives problems with sound
It is probably AC97 which is a Win thing
As for the dual screen issue I don't really know
There is a change in X between Felicia and Gloria but I would still think the solutions in Felicia would work
If you post lspci for this laptop I might find it easier to answer you
mort

Re: Dual Screen Output Issue

Post by mort »

Thank you for your reply... :) Sorry for the delay... my 4 month old son is a tad distracting!

I'm afraid I'm a novice at Linux (at best) and lspci was a new command for me so I don't know if you wanted any of the '-options' included :? Also I'll have to return to my friends for the lspci on his machine for the sound issue... He's VERY new at computers (about a week actually!)...

The lspci for the laptop is as follows;

lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 01)
02:04.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB PRO/100 VE (MOB) Ethernet Controller (rev 83)
02:09.0 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-720/2/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
02:09.1 CardBus bridge: ENE Technology Inc CB-720/2/4 Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
02:09.2 FLASH memory: ENE Technology Inc CB710 Memory Card Reader Controller
isbura

Re: Dual Screen Output Issue

Post by isbura »

I just switched from Mint 7 GNOME to XFCE (clean install from RC1) and am experiencing similar problems on a laptop with an ATI Radeon X700 card (OSS radeon driver). Logging in at first gave me a mirrored display with no option in the display applet to configure my second monitor. Furthermore, changing the initial resolution (1024x768) to the primary monitor's native mode (1280x800) worked but upon logging in again it defaulted back to 1024x768.

I got a dual-monitor setup (sort of) working by editing xorg.conf and adding 2 monitor sections with PreferredMode options and a suitable Virtual screen size. While sitting at the login screen, everything is the correct resolution on both monitors. As soon as I log in, the primary display switches to 1152x768(!) but at least I still have dual-screen!

Running

Code: Select all

xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1280x800 --output VGA-0 --mode 1280x1024 --right-of LVDS
after logging in finally gets things set up the way I want, but it's a bit of a pain doing this every time. Maybe once I get to grips with XFCE I'll be able to set this up as part of the login session, but it would be nice to be able to configure all this from the Display applet rather than messing around with xorg.conf and xrandr.

EDIT: I just noticed more strangeness - when configuring panel layout and desktop wallpaper, XFCE seems to have no problems recognising that I've 2 monitors. It allows me to set wallpaper on both monitors and to reposition panels to display on separate monitors, even though the Display applet still insists I have only one monitor!
Husse

Re: Dual Screen Output Issue

Post by Husse »

I think you could put the xrandr command in rc.local
Add the line just before "exit 0" in /etc/rc.local
This will make it the last thing run on boot
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