Nvidia Twinview & Linux

I finally got around to installing the Nvidia driver that supports two screens. This is the proprietary Nvidia driver, not the open source driver. It wasn't too much trouble and it seems to work pretty well. Downloading and installing the driver went very smoothly. The hiccups came with the configuration.

Update: Chewearn's blog was very helpful.

My hardware:

• ViewSonic VA902b LCD flatpanel display, 1280 x 1024 resolution.
• Princeton VF912 19" CRT with resolution out the ying-yang (data sheet).
• Nvidia 7600 GT dual head video card.

nvidia-settings is the configuration program. I did not find it in any of the system menus after I installed the driver, but the instructions I found on the web named it. Later on, I wanted to run it again and I couldn't remember the name nvidia-configure? nvidia-configuration? I had to go look it up again. I still don't know where it is, but it is in the search path somewhere, so I can invoke it from a terminal window.

Both of my screens are roughly the same size, so I wanted to set the resolution to be the same on both. The first resolution drop down box in nivdia-settings has a list of maybe a dozen settings, but it does not have 1280 x 1024. It has several that are smaller, and one that is bigger. Bugger. Some fooling around and I click on the resolution box for the other screen and it has got a list of a about a gazillion settings. Whoa! And one of them IS for 1280 by 1024. Okay, so we will switch the cables on the ports on the card. But now the LCD screen complains the signal is NOT IN RANGE. Bah. Now what? 1280 by 1024 IS the correct resolution. Is there something else we can change? The second part of the resolution line contains the vertical refresh frequency. I end up setting it to 75Hz and that seems to work.

The instructions I found warn not to Save to X Configuration File, it will bugger your system. It means running nvidia-settings after each re-boot, but at least it works. The instructions were written a few months ago, and things change, so I thought I would try it and see if it works. Especially after I rebooted and then ran nvidia-settings again. I click on apply and everything disappears. I have to quick-lean-down-and-swap-the-cables-before-the-five-second-time-limit-expires-and-everything-reverts-to-the-way-it-was. It takes three or four tries before I manage. Okay, we certainly don't want to have to deal with this every time we reboot so let's see if writing to the config file works or not.

The first time doesn't, but that really isn't surprising, I was not master-of-my-universe (sudo, or super user do). Invoking the program with the sudo prefix (sudo nvidia-settings) fixed that, and rebooting worked fine. So far. This is what the setup looks like in the dark. Aren't all the LED's pretty?

I have encountered some minor bugs, but basically things are working okay. The main reason I wanted this was for working with Eclipse (a software development tool) it wants to put up all these panes, and there just isn't enough room on one screen. The way Twinview works here is kind of interesting. If you click on the maximize button, the program window will fill one screen. So how do you get it to fill two screens? Do I have go back and make a major configuration change? No, simply unmaximize the window, and then stretch to fill both screens. Kind of backwards, but it works.

As far as bugs I have noticed two things:

1. Title bars on windows sometimes disappear. Somethings they just go white, sometimes they vanish completely and the window title is appears in some kind mutated kaleidoscope font. When they go white, the window control buttons still work. The tool tips still pop up when you are over them.
2. I was running Firefox yesterday and I opened a bunch of windows and the screen I was working on started fading to gray. I would click something and it would come back, but then it would go to gray immediately. Things went downhill from there.

One thing I have noticed that is kind of cute, is that when you close a window instead of just disappearing, it does this vanishing act, kind of like what you see on Mac's. Makes me realize I have not come anywhere close to making full use of this video card.

Update November 2016 replaced missing pictures.