Before reading the following with hopes of applying this to your system please understand the following:
I have little experience with X
I have tested this on my system only
I have tested this on one card only
I can not help you fix your machine if something goes wrong
In this quick guide I will be demonstrating how I am able to use both DVI outputs on my hybrid core and with many obvious limitations effectively use my core as a media director in two separate rooms.
This guide is written for confident users who along with their backup methods are interested in getting the most out of their LMCE experience. I will be using graphical interfaces as that is where I am most comfortable. Users above the limitations of graphical interfaces who are more comfortable with editing .conf files directly may still gain from the basics presented and hopefully expand upon this and get this hardware functioning at levels miles beyond current settings.
My setup:My hybrid core is mounted in a wall that separates my office from my living room. In the office I use an Acer 23" monitor with desktop speakers. In the living room sits my 60" LG Plasma and Sony Surround Sound Receiver. DVI goes to the TV via DVI-to-HDMI cable, DVI-2 goes to the monitor with a standard DVI-to-DVI.
The audio setup and AV equipment control would be a completely separate guide so I am going to stick with video settings. I use a XFX GeForce 7600 GT PCIe card.
By separate media director I mean that without any wiring changes or commands of any kind I can access my display in the living room or office, or both at the same time. Typically I am in the office accessing the display from the hybrid core but at all times that display is also being sent to the living room. If I am watching a movie in the office I can tune to HDMI input in the living room and watch the same thing there. Because orbiters interact with the media director as one controllable device, I can also be sitting in the living room with an orbiter and access this media director as if it was local while the monitor in the office is turned off (or using a kvm switch, working with my non-LMCE PC). Along with these limitations I effectively have 2 Media Directors and a CORE for the price of one.
Configuration:During initial installation my TV was not connected to simplify things. The LMCE 10.04 install DVD detected my card and provided me with NVIDIA Driver Version 260.19.29 with output to DVI-2. I selected DVI-2/HDMI @ 1920x1080 during the AV Wizard. No additional changes were made and no software outside of what LMCE provided me at install was used. I performed a full apt-get update/upgrade using the methods described in my guide to slow internet connection updating prior to performing this change. I see no reason why this setting could not be applied to any media director with this card so I am going to refer to the physical device as 'machine' in this guide to keep things clear.
To match your card and driver to mine, execute the following in a terminal.
lspci | grep VGA
My output:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G73 [GeForce 7600 GT] (rev a1)Backup your physical system - I recommend Clonezilla but use whichever you are comfortable with
While powered off, connect the TV via DVI-to-HDMI cable to the DVI port of the video card
Power on
Enter KDE Desktop
Launch Manager>Applications>Settings>Nvidia X server Settings (this was installed automagicly, thanks devs!)
Select "X Server Display Configuration"
Two monitors should appear on the right
Select the Disabled display -
tv or secondary monitor should be named here alreadyUse the
[Configure...] button to open a radio button selection window
Click TwinView and then press
[Ok] #seperate x screens is an available option but I do not believe this would be supported currently, to drive separate displays LMCE would need 2 on-screen orbiters, 2 Xine players and basically 2 full MDs.Click
[Advanced...]Change Position: to
[Absolute ] +0+0
- more on this below(#) Click
[Save to X Configuration File]Click
[Show preview...] leaving the merge option selected
Scroll to near the bottom of that window and locate the entry:
Option "metamodes" "CRT: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP: 1920x1080 +1920+0"
Edit this line to match below:
Option "metamodes" "CRT: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP: 1920x1080 +0+0"
#this tells x to not begin placement of the second display after the end of the primary display but
rather to draw absolute beginning at +0+0 (twin display to each monitor with capped res width of 1920).
Ignoring this step will draw a 3840x1080 desktop on a 1920x1080 screen. This is cool for desktop work but
not as valuable on your tv display. Locking the resolution to the screen is smoother.
Select all text in the window and copy (Ctrl+c)
Open a terminal session
sudo kwrite /etc/X11/xorg.conf
#Be warned you know have write permission to a very sensitive file. Do not proceed if you have any
doubts about your ability to recover from an oops!
Replace the contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the contents of your clipboard - select all, delete, Ctrl+V
Save changes
Exit Kwrite
Ctrl+C to stop sudo session in terminal
Exit terminal
Reboot - a reload router is not enough to reload X, you will need a reboot
Test and hopefully enjoy - see note below (#)
Report problems to me, please don't distract the devs from the important work they are doing.
Backup your machine with a unique name such as "psuedo-free-MD-img" this allows you to restore to before using the first backup point or continue with these settings.
#Reopening NVIDIA X server Settings should now only show 1 display graphically, the twin view information is contained below the picture in the details that instruct it to mirror the display to both outputs.*Edit1 - with all the [ ] needed to represent a clickable button I am amazed at how few times I messed up my formatting. =)
*Edit2 - rephrased and reworded some areas for clarity
