-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, On Mon, 4 Oct 2004, Joerg Bruehe wrote:

I am searching for some general info regarding the general use of the VGA and DVI ports on my graphics card (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.

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 have a Philips 15" TFT (1024x768@60) connected to the VGA port, that runs fine. I now bought a BenQ 19" TFT (intended: 1280x1024@60 with DVI interface) and connected it to the card's DVI port.

When the PC boots, both screens display the BIOS + boot messages. I have the penguin logo at boot, so AIUI this means I am using framebuffer?

Yes.

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.

I intend to operate both screens simultaneously. I do not need overlapping windows, and I probably also can do without reassigning windows between the two screens.

Can I do that with the "standard" X software as delivered by SuSE, or do I need to install the software from nVidia's homepage? (I have a preference to remain SuSE-only, as I expect this will cause less versioning problems. I repeat: I do not need 3D!)

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.

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.

(I have another card, a Matrox G200 for PCI, but would prefer doing without it, as I assume with a single card it is easier to fall back onto any single screen if one fails or is needed at other places - correct?)

Hmm, not sure if I know what you mean here. Try to reconfigure your existing card with both monitors attached. If this fails, adding a second video card is a safe option. There should not be any fallback problems - the AGP card will still remain the primary card. Bye, LenZ - -- - ------------------------------------------------------------------ Lenz Grimmer <lenz@grimmer.com> -o) [ICQ: 160767607 | Jabber: LenZGr@jabber.org] /\\ http://www.lenzg.org/ V_V -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://quantumlab.net/pine_privacy_guard/ iD8DBQFBYmPiSVDhKrJykfIRAqkiAJ9M8aWeFs8njifw85YpFC7arbjarACcDhri dSGKeGmiWC/ssrb8+KMtMmo= =vsXo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Joerg Bruehe wrote:

Hi all!

I am searching for some general info regarding the general use of the VGA and DVI ports on my graphics card (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"). The machine's purpose is software development + office applications, so I need no 3D stuff.

I have a Philips 15" TFT (1024x768@60) connected to the VGA port, that runs fine. I now bought a BenQ 19" TFT (intended: 1280x1024@60 with DVI interface) and connected it to the card's DVI port.

When the PC boots, both screens display the BIOS + boot messages. I have the penguin logo at boot, so AIUI this means I am using framebuffer? 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?

I intend to operate both screens simultaneously. I do not need overlapping windows, and I probably also can do without reassigning windows between the two screens.

Can I do that with the "standard" X software as delivered by SuSE, or do I need to install the software from nVidia's homepage? (I have a preference to remain SuSE-only, as I expect this will cause less versioning problems. I repeat: I do not need 3D!)

The dual-heading Howto I found describes only the case of using separate cards - is there something available for dual-heading from single card? (I have another card, a Matrox G200 for PCI, but would prefer doing without it, as I assume with a single card it is easier to fall back onto any single screen if one fails or is needed at other places - correct?)

Thank you for all hints, Joerg Bruehe

You might wanne look at the Xinerama howto... Under SUSE 9.1 it's located under /usr/share/doc/html/en/Xinerama-howto.html. Or something that look like it.... Done this for a ASUS laptop with ATI Mobility M7, running SUSE 7.2 and hand compiled XFree 4.3.0.... Can't find the XFree config at the moment, if I still got.... Currently fighting ATI 9600 Pro with same thing... Hope this helps, Stefan...