[Intrepid] dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg results in an unusable X (no output) when two monitors are connected

[Loïc Martin]

Binary package hint: xorg

Running dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg on a computers with two monitors attached to one Nvidia (7900GS) graphic card results in a configuration with no X output and some garbled consoles (console n°1 works though, but goes over the bottom of the screen, and the cursor stays on the top left corner).

This is the same kind of configuration that results in Bug #277724
However, this problem is more serious because it hoses a working system, and normal users wouldn't be able to solve the problem (whereas they're the kind of users one would advise to run dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg if they had trouble with their configuration).

[lspci]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation G71 [GeForce 7900 GS] [10de:0292] (rev a1)
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 1064SG [Mystique] [102b:051a] (rev 02)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

does it work with only one monitor?

What was the old xorg.conf like?

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

It works with only one monitor (that's how I managed to boot the Beta Live CD and install).

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Looks like the two monitors don't have compatible ranges of resolutions, and it's picking 1280x800, which is fine for one monitor but invalid for the other.

[Steve Beattie (sbeattie)]

This bug was reported in the Intrepid development cycle; removing regression-potential and marking as regression-release.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

This bug is marked as Incomplete but I can't figure what's missing. Could somebody point me to any other file I should provide?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thank you for reporting this issue about xserver-xorg-video-nv. Starting
with Lucid, Ubuntu is transitioning to using the -nouveau video driver
by default instead of -nv. The reason for this change is because
upstream development for the -nv driver has been quite slow. We are
quite pleased with the upstream development speed for -nouveau, and hope
this will translate into swifter bug fixes as well.

Because of this, I'm closing this bug report at this time. I'm marking
it wontfix because what you describe is probably a valid issue, but we
do not have further plans to work on it in Ubuntu. If you would still like
to see this issue investigated, I would encourage you to file it
upstream at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/.