GeForce4MX440-VTP: multi-display under linux?

[GnomeSkull]

Currently I am playing with Mandrake 9.0 (I love it so far) but I am wondering if it will even be possible to get my multiple displays working under this or other versions of Linux? I would switch over to Linux totally if I could. I am not so concerned about the TV in/out functions as I am of the dual VGA outputs working. Any info on that would be helpful, thanks! Feel free to email me (jdouglas@scopicmedia.com) or ICQ me (9757572) or MSN me (jd_69@hotmail.com).

[Chalnoth]

I haven't done it myself, but there's some info on setting up nView in various modes in the readme for nVidia's Linux display drivers.

[GnomeSkull]

Thanks, I didn't see those notes about TwinView in the readme before.

But I can't get that far. :( I installed the latest kernel, then the latest glx (from tarball) as described in the readme and in other posts. I edited my XF86Config file also as described. Now, when it is booting up, it seems to try to go into X, the monitor flicks on and off about 3 times, and then goes back to command line, finishes booting, and waits for me to log in at command line.

Any thoughts about what I've done wrong anyone?

[Chalnoth]

Try editing XF86Config-4 instead.

[GnomeSkull]

That's what I did edit, as according to other posts I saw here, including changing "nv" to "nvidia". I believe the other lines that I was to remove were already absent from the config, so that's all I had to change. Sorry I didn't type the whole filename in my last post. Thanks for the help.

[Chalnoth]

From what I remember, Mandrake definitely had the other lines (Load 'dri' and Load 'glcore'). I use pico for a text editor at the console (when I can't go into X), within which you can just type Ctrl+W to do a quick search.

Anyway, if you still don't see anything obvious to change, try posting your XFree log and XF86Config-4 file here (I think the log is in /var/log/XFree86.0.log, but I could be a bit off on that...).

[GnomeSkull]

I think I had another problem that I never did diagnose. I got frustrated and just reinstalled (didn't have anything to lose anyways, this time). So anyways I downloaded the latest drivers again (tarballs). First of all, I did this all in X (KDE) as root.

After I installed the kernel sources, I installed from the tarball versions of the kernel and GLX drivers. Then I opened up XF86Config-4 and changed the "nv" to "nvidia".

The 'Load "glx"' was already in place, the 'Load "dri"' and 'Load "GLcore"' were nowhere to be found, so ok so far.

Rebooted to see if all was ok thus far. My second monitor was trying to display something, but the frequency is different from the main monitor and TwinView was not yet enabled, so it was not readable.

So to set up TwinView I added the following to the "screen" section of XF86Config-4:

# NVIDIA TWINVIEW OPTIONS - ADDED MANUALLY
Option "TwinView" "1"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "31-64"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, CRT"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
# If monitor 1 is 1024x768 so is monitor 2
# upon mode change (ie: game), mon. 2 is out
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768; 1024x768,NULL;"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "50-120"
Option "NoLogo" "1"

# AGP CONFIGURATION - ADDED MANUALLY
Option "NVAGP" "1"

The "MetaModes" option as configured above means that when X first starts, both monitors are in 1024x768 resolution (so the desktop is actually 2048x768 and spans both monitors) and when a mode change occurs (for example starting up Tuxracer :) ) it only displays on the main monitor. I won't go over all of the other Options above, it is all in the readme.

But it was a little unclear to me at the start, and the metamode bit was confusing even after reading the readme, so I thought I would share this with others. Thanks for your time. Hope this helps someone else.