Hello all, I just recently switched to using Linux full-time on my primary desktop after running it on servers, at work, and on my notebook for years. So far the transition has been quite smooth.
Except for one thing. X and its display configuration.
Upon installing Kubuntu 12.10, my display worked great! I was able to go into Display and Monitor settings and tell it that my smaller monitor was to the left, rather than the right, of my larger primary monitor. Worked fine.
Then I installed the nVidia drivers. Again, my display worked great... only one tiny problem... it reverted to thinking my small monitor was to the right. I soon discovered that using the same Display and Monitor settings was a bad idea. It didn't play well with the nvidia drivers at all. So I went to use the nVidia Settings program. It detects both of my monitors, it has them both setup using the correct resolution (1920x1200 for the primary, 1680x1050 for the secondary). Except when it comes to the one tab I need, the X Server Display Configuration tab. In that tab, it knows the correct resolution of both monitors, but it refuses to permit me to use it. I see two squares, and each one has a smaller square inside it representing a 1024x768 display. It apparently will let me pan around the monitors actual resolution, but it will only use 1024x768. In the resolution dropdowns, I get 1024x768 and some lower resolutions along with 'auto'. Since my display was working quite fine at the monitors native resolutions, I figured this might just be a little quirk of the settings app. So I swapped the physical layout of the two monitors, left them on 'auto' for the resolution, and hit apply. It immediately threw me into 1024x768 on both monitors, and mirrored them rather than spanning across them. Nothing I could do in the GUI would convince them to go back to the configuration it was happily using earlier.
I deactivated the nvidia driver, and my display came back. I tried to download the nvidia drivers directly, but the .run file will not install because it detects a file Kubuntu put somewhere to prevent such from happening, along with a message recommending using the Additional Drivers menu to install them (which is what I'd done before). I googled around for a bit, found no help. I could find no one facing the 1024x768-inside-a-properly-sized-display quandry. I tried activating the other nvidia option listed in Additional Drivers and got the same behavior - works perfectly fine except for physical layout until I touch the nvidia settings. I tried adding the x-swat repository to get newer drivers. Same result.
I am more than willing to craft my own xorg.conf. I have tried a few things with that, but as far as I can tell all Kubuntu does is remove the file and ignore it entirely. One clue that may or may not have anything to do with the matter is that my smaller monitor can do its native resolution only at 60Hz. It CAN run up to 75Hz, but maxes out at 1024x768 at that refresh rate. My primary, larger, monitor runs at 75Hz with its native resolution. When the display is nearly-working, the nvidia settings says that it is running my larger monitor at 60Hz too. Do the monitors have to be run at the same refresh rate? If so, could the capabilities of my smaller monitor be handicapping the bigger one? Why would that be the case? My larger monitor can do 1920x1200 at 60Hz just fine.
My questions are basically, what can I do to take full control of this situation? Should I download the nVidia drivers from nvidia, get rid of the 'guard' file Kubuntu puts in place, craft an xorg.conf manually, and do something to force Kubuntu to try to use it? Where can I find information on doing such a thing (not making the xorg.conf, but getting Kubuntu to let me use it)?
Also, minor unrelated question: I never see grub during the boot. I even downloaded a grub2 configuration app and changed it to wait 10 seconds to display me the menu, but I still never see it. Does Kubuntu 12.10 come with grub2 or still the original grub? Is there a place in Kubuntu that would permit me to configure it? I know looking in the /boot/grub folder there is no menu.lst file, so I presume its using grub2. Is my guess correct?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Except for one thing. X and its display configuration.
Upon installing Kubuntu 12.10, my display worked great! I was able to go into Display and Monitor settings and tell it that my smaller monitor was to the left, rather than the right, of my larger primary monitor. Worked fine.
Then I installed the nVidia drivers. Again, my display worked great... only one tiny problem... it reverted to thinking my small monitor was to the right. I soon discovered that using the same Display and Monitor settings was a bad idea. It didn't play well with the nvidia drivers at all. So I went to use the nVidia Settings program. It detects both of my monitors, it has them both setup using the correct resolution (1920x1200 for the primary, 1680x1050 for the secondary). Except when it comes to the one tab I need, the X Server Display Configuration tab. In that tab, it knows the correct resolution of both monitors, but it refuses to permit me to use it. I see two squares, and each one has a smaller square inside it representing a 1024x768 display. It apparently will let me pan around the monitors actual resolution, but it will only use 1024x768. In the resolution dropdowns, I get 1024x768 and some lower resolutions along with 'auto'. Since my display was working quite fine at the monitors native resolutions, I figured this might just be a little quirk of the settings app. So I swapped the physical layout of the two monitors, left them on 'auto' for the resolution, and hit apply. It immediately threw me into 1024x768 on both monitors, and mirrored them rather than spanning across them. Nothing I could do in the GUI would convince them to go back to the configuration it was happily using earlier.
I deactivated the nvidia driver, and my display came back. I tried to download the nvidia drivers directly, but the .run file will not install because it detects a file Kubuntu put somewhere to prevent such from happening, along with a message recommending using the Additional Drivers menu to install them (which is what I'd done before). I googled around for a bit, found no help. I could find no one facing the 1024x768-inside-a-properly-sized-display quandry. I tried activating the other nvidia option listed in Additional Drivers and got the same behavior - works perfectly fine except for physical layout until I touch the nvidia settings. I tried adding the x-swat repository to get newer drivers. Same result.
I am more than willing to craft my own xorg.conf. I have tried a few things with that, but as far as I can tell all Kubuntu does is remove the file and ignore it entirely. One clue that may or may not have anything to do with the matter is that my smaller monitor can do its native resolution only at 60Hz. It CAN run up to 75Hz, but maxes out at 1024x768 at that refresh rate. My primary, larger, monitor runs at 75Hz with its native resolution. When the display is nearly-working, the nvidia settings says that it is running my larger monitor at 60Hz too. Do the monitors have to be run at the same refresh rate? If so, could the capabilities of my smaller monitor be handicapping the bigger one? Why would that be the case? My larger monitor can do 1920x1200 at 60Hz just fine.
My questions are basically, what can I do to take full control of this situation? Should I download the nVidia drivers from nvidia, get rid of the 'guard' file Kubuntu puts in place, craft an xorg.conf manually, and do something to force Kubuntu to try to use it? Where can I find information on doing such a thing (not making the xorg.conf, but getting Kubuntu to let me use it)?
Also, minor unrelated question: I never see grub during the boot. I even downloaded a grub2 configuration app and changed it to wait 10 seconds to display me the menu, but I still never see it. Does Kubuntu 12.10 come with grub2 or still the original grub? Is there a place in Kubuntu that would permit me to configure it? I know looking in the /boot/grub folder there is no menu.lst file, so I presume its using grub2. Is my guess correct?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Comment