Mini-Howto: Multiple Monitors (DualHead) with the OpenSource „nv“-Driver (using RandR extension)

I finally managed to get dualhead running with the nv-driver. I switched away from the nvidia binary ones due the slow performance on kde4. no glossy anymore, but at least its fast, compared to the binary its a rocket. Really easy to do, when you know how 😉

so, edit xorg.conf or take mine as example (you should not have any mess from other drivers)

thinks to change are marked bold

Section „InputDevice“
Identifier      „Generic Keyboard“
Driver          „kbd“
Option          „XkbRules“      „xorg“
Option          „XkbModel“      „pc105“
Option          „XkbLayout“     „ch“
EndSection

Section „InputDevice“
Identifier      „Configured Mouse“
Driver          „mouse“
Option          „CorePointer“
EndSection

Section „Device“
Identifier      „Configured Video Device“
Driver          „nv“
BusID          „PCI:1:0:0“
EndSection

Section „Monitor“
Identifier      „Configured Monitor“
EndSection

Section „Monitor“
Identifier      „Configured Monitor1“
EndSection

Section „Screen“
Identifier      „Default Screen“
Monitor         „Configured Monitor“
Device          „Configured Video Device“
DefaultDepth    24
SubSection „Display“
Depth          24
# ADD A VIRTUAL LINE TO PROVIDE FOR THE LARGEST SCREENS YOU WILL HOTPLUG
Virtual              1280 1792
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section „ServerLayout“
Identifier      „Default Layout“
Screen          0 „Default Screen“
InputDevice    „Generic Keyboard“
InputDevice    „Configured Mouse“
EndSection

Section „ServerFlags“
Option „RandR“ „on“
EndSection

after restarting X (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace) you can do the following comands (as the kde4 display options dont let me setup anything other than clone)

xrandr #to see what your output names are
xrandr --output DVI0 --auto --below VGA2

if you get a „connot be larger than“ error, you have to adjust the „Virtual“ in xorg.conf

Update

After Upgrading to KDE 4.1 Release it dont save my xrandr settings anymore, so i created a litte script like this:

nano ~/.kde4/Autostart/bashscript

#!/bin/bash
xrandr --output DVI0 --auto --below VGA2