dual monitors not recognized

[Bruce Visscher]

When I run 11.10 from live CD both monitors displayed in mirror mode. Went to system settings/Display, unchecked "Mirror Displays". Left and right were reversed so switched using drag and drop. Success! [Correctly identified Dell monitor but LG monitor was incorrectly identified as something generic. However, everything was working fine.]

Proceeded with installation. (FYI, installed on existing ext4 partition. Boot partition - also ext4 - is not mounted.) Selected to use additional proprietary software. Additional software showed NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics driver (version 173) was installed. Tried "(post-release updates)(version 173-update)" and "(version current)" and "(post-release updates)(version current-updates)" to no avail.

Had similar problem at 9.04. Found solution in forum. However, since the live CD installation seems to work, was hoping to avoid having to hack the installation. Should I have chosen to not include the proprietary drivers?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.2.0-0ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Oct 17 23:26:10 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-control-center
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111012)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
 deja-dup 20.0-0ubuntu3
 gnome-bluetooth 3.2.0-0ubuntu1
 indicator-datetime 0.3.0-0ubuntu3

[Bruce Visscher (bruce-visscher)]

BTW, my NVIDIA card is Geforce 8600 GT.
Tried removing the proprietary driver to no avail.

Noticed that the live CD does not have an /etc/X11/xonf.conf file so I did:

cd /etc/X11
mv xorg.conf xorg.conf.bak

restarted and no difference.

I have attached the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file that was working under 9.04. I am tempted to try restoring that but isn't 11.10 running a major new release of X?

[Bruce Visscher (bruce-visscher)]

Tried with attached xorg.conf (but without the proprietary drivers installed). There were errors coming up but I now have both monitors working. I still don't understand why dual monitors worked from the live CD without an xorg.conf but the installed OS doesn't.

[krackersk (krackersk)]

They worked from the live CD because you were using the open source Nouveau driver. I couldn't set up the nvidia driver either for dual monitors but when I did a fresh install without the internet (and hence no binary drivers), dual monitors worked fine.

Quite a few people are having a problem with nvidia drivers and dual monitors, check out this thread.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1859730

[Bruce Visscher (bruce-visscher)]

krackersk,

Thank you so much for this information! Installing with no internet was the only way to prevent the system from trying to install the proprietary driver. My dual monitors are working again so I am happy.

I can't thank you enough for this. It really saved me a lot of time.

Bruce

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.