Hi Lenz, all, thank you for your answer. Am Die, 2004-10-05 um 11.05 schrieb Lenz Grimmer:
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Hi,
On Mon, 4 Oct 2004, Joerg Bruehe wrote:
... (chip: nVidia FX 5200 on AGP). My machine has SuSE 8.2 installed (I could upgrade if needed), I use XFree86-4.3.0-120, but I have no special "nv" or "nVidia" driver installed yet (according to "rpm -qa").
You won't see it in the rpm database - the "nv" driver is part of XFree86, while the "nvidia" driver module is the non-free driver version from NVidia, that supports 3D acceleration and some other features.
Ok, that explains it. I was surprised by rpm not showing it.
The machine's purpose is software development + office applications, so I need no 3D stuff.
Then the "nv" driver is probably sufficient, but I don't know about its multihead capabilities. In any case, you may have to upgrade to a more recent version of SUSE Linux.
I will ask about "nv + multihead" separately. The nVidia driver is available for SuSE 8.2, but I would upgrade if needed.
...
As soon as the X server starts, the DVI-connected screen goes blank. As I have not changed the X configuration yet, this is to be expected?
Probably yes. If the initial configuration was performed with only one screen attached, it may have configured it to use one screen only.
So it looks like the framebuffer (at boot) sends the signals to all available outputs, but when X starts it only sends to the configured one. This is plausible. What I still fail to understand: The text mode consoles are not handled via X, AIUI. So where is the config info that sends their signals to the VGA output (only)?
[[dual-heading]]
My first suggestion would be to simply restart the X configuration with both screens attached. Maybe the configuration program (sax2) will pick it up automatically already.
I had tried that, but did not succeed - neither with "sax2" directly nor via Yast. Well, dual-heading is no typical situation. I fear this requires manual editing of the X configuration - much cut-and-paste, plus changing the identifiers.
The dual-heading Howto I found describes only the case of using separate cards - is there something available for dual-heading from single card?
It depends on the card - even though some have two separate outlets (Sub-D and DVI) I am not quite sure if all of them support driving both ports simultaneously. I do have a Matrox G450, which I use in dual-head mode.
According to the nVidia homepage, it should work with a FX 5200. I am just looking for a Howto-like document, not vendor appraisal. Regards and Thanks, Jörg -- Joerg Bruehe mailto:joerg.bruehe@web.de