Well not yet, first you need to make sure it's working!
But to have applications maximise correctly (for example) you'll need to make sure xinerama support is compiled in. You won't have to do this for every app though. I think emerge has a --newuse flag that will tell you.
Gotcha. Your config file didn't work; I'll post the log shortly, but first I want to edit the massive dump above.
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
Yes, it does. It was introduced recently. You'll just need to add xinerama to your USE flags and then run emerge with that switch. It won't need to compile every app, just the ones that support xinerama.
So, I notice in the log file that X is capable of detecting the capabilities of your displays. Why, then, do we have to enter in stats in xorg.conf?
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
So it knows which stats to detect. :)
And because the X server sucks. But, thanks to x.org, that is finally starting to change. The XFree86 people did shit all proper development to advance the server, the x.org people are trying to bring it up to date with modern technology and concepts.
Okay, so it's not just me. I've been getting the very definite impression throughout this whole thing that X is a work-in-progress, and an outdated one at that. I'm really starting to consider just shelving the whole linux thing for another couple of years....
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
I wouldn't do that. Once you get it going, X works rather well, and the only problem you're having is related to ATI's drivers being sucky (it's ATI - no surprise) when it comes to multimonitor support, which if you weren't trying to get going you'd be quite happily using a fully functional X server right now.
If I was you I'd drop the firegl stuff and switch to the "radeon" driver. If you do a man radeon you'll see it also supports multimonitor stuff, and if you don't want to use its internal stuff you can just use xinerama instead. There are alternatives to what we've been trying so far.
By the way, have you tried posting a thread at the gentoo forums? Dozens if not hundreds of minds are better than just Jambo and I. :) You'll most likely get people helping you in no time. If people point out the dozens of other threads about similar issues, point out you've been trying ideas from them already. Also make sure to mention you're using an apple cinema display, which could be the root of this whole problem.
There's also the alternative of buying an nvidia card. ;)
Well, my latest attempts have been without using the firegl setup -- or at least, I think they have been. I tried editing the xorg.conf file, basically just trying different refresh ranges for the Cinema Display, as well as adding in the Xinerama option and specifying the layout. Then, I run startx, and when it doesn't work, I look over the log file to see if it gives clues as to why.
Thing is... this is not a CRT we're dealing with here. It doesn't [i]have[/i] refresh rates in quite the same way CRTs do; all that really changes is the rate at which information gets transmitted to the display, and I'm not even sure it changes that, given that it's a DVI-D connection. I'm pretty sure this is why Apple doesn't include refresh rates in their tech specs, and why no refresh rates show up in the logfile's display section. My other LCD does give refresh rate specs, but I imagine that's more for compatibility with old VGA specs than because the values are actually meaningful for anything other than how often pixels get updated.
It may just be that X in its current condition cannot work with the Cinema Display. I've tried using the ViewSonic display with both connectors, and it seems that by default the video card works in clone mode. I can tell the flat panel to switch between DVI and DSUB inputs and get the same picture on both. Given that the Cinema Display supports the modes that the Viewsonic was working in, I should at least get the same picture on both displays rather than having the Cinema Display blank the whole time. I think I would, too, if X weren't so insistent on verifying that your display can do what you think it can. Maybe there's a way around verification, where you can force it to output a signal in a given mode regardless of what it detects?
As for getting an nvidia card... I'm not about to spend more money on another video card until I can do it on a PCI Express product with dual-DVI outputs. As it tuns out, I think there's already one out there from Asus, and it's an nvidia card... but I don't yet have a PCI-E motherboard. I'm pretty sure that'll be my next major upgrade splurge: nforce4 mobo, AMD64 processor, and PCI-E dual-DVI video card. It'll probably be another three or four months or so before that happens, though, and by that time ATI might have a decent dual-DVI offering. No telling what I'll get at this point.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Bekenn [/i]
[B]
As for getting an nvidia card... I'm not about to spend more money on another video card until I can do it on a PCI Express product with dual-DVI outputs. As it tuns out, I think there's already one out there from Asus, and it's an nvidia card... but I don't yet have a PCI-E motherboard. I'm pretty sure that'll be my next major upgrade splurge: nforce4 mobo, AMD64 processor, and PCI-E dual-DVI video card. It'll probably be another three or four months or so before that happens, though, and by that time ATI might have a decent dual-DVI offering. No telling what I'll get at this point. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yeah, buy a nforce4 mobo and 2x Geforce 6800 GT or Ultra and use SLI, I bet you'd get some great results in 3dmark2001 with that. :D
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
To not use the firegl drivers, change the driver line to read
Driver "radeon"
You'll need to comment out all the extra options too.
Have you tried it with just the cinema display plugged in?
Has anyone on the gentoo forums mentioned anything about using cinema displays in X?
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Biggles [/i]
[B]To not use the firegl drivers, change the driver line to read
Driver "radeon"[/B][/QUOTE]
Gotcha.
[QUOTE][B]Have you tried it with just the cinema display plugged in?[/B][/QUOTE]
Now that you mention it, no, I haven't; I'll give that a shot.
[QUOTE][B]Has anyone on the gentoo forums mentioned anything about using cinema displays in X? [/B][/QUOTE]
Yup. Not much, but a little; there was one recent thread started by a guy with the same problem I have, and one older thread where someone asked if it was possible to do. That seems to be it, though.
Bekenn, there's a new ATI Linux driver out for xorg ([url]http://ati.com/support/drivers/linux/radeon-linux.html[/url]), this does include support for the type of monitor setup you want.
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
Do they work with the Mobility cards? It'd be nice to get multimonitor support on my laptop at last.
Comments
But to have applications maximise correctly (for example) you'll need to make sure xinerama support is compiled in. You won't have to do this for every app though. I think emerge has a --newuse flag that will tell you.
And because the X server sucks. But, thanks to x.org, that is finally starting to change. The XFree86 people did shit all proper development to advance the server, the x.org people are trying to bring it up to date with modern technology and concepts.
If I was you I'd drop the firegl stuff and switch to the "radeon" driver. If you do a man radeon you'll see it also supports multimonitor stuff, and if you don't want to use its internal stuff you can just use xinerama instead. There are alternatives to what we've been trying so far.
By the way, have you tried posting a thread at the gentoo forums? Dozens if not hundreds of minds are better than just Jambo and I. :) You'll most likely get people helping you in no time. If people point out the dozens of other threads about similar issues, point out you've been trying ideas from them already. Also make sure to mention you're using an apple cinema display, which could be the root of this whole problem.
There's also the alternative of buying an nvidia card. ;)
Thing is... this is not a CRT we're dealing with here. It doesn't [i]have[/i] refresh rates in quite the same way CRTs do; all that really changes is the rate at which information gets transmitted to the display, and I'm not even sure it changes that, given that it's a DVI-D connection. I'm pretty sure this is why Apple doesn't include refresh rates in their tech specs, and why no refresh rates show up in the logfile's display section. My other LCD does give refresh rate specs, but I imagine that's more for compatibility with old VGA specs than because the values are actually meaningful for anything other than how often pixels get updated.
It may just be that X in its current condition cannot work with the Cinema Display. I've tried using the ViewSonic display with both connectors, and it seems that by default the video card works in clone mode. I can tell the flat panel to switch between DVI and DSUB inputs and get the same picture on both. Given that the Cinema Display supports the modes that the Viewsonic was working in, I should at least get the same picture on both displays rather than having the Cinema Display blank the whole time. I think I would, too, if X weren't so insistent on verifying that your display can do what you think it can. Maybe there's a way around verification, where you can force it to output a signal in a given mode regardless of what it detects?
As for getting an nvidia card... I'm not about to spend more money on another video card until I can do it on a PCI Express product with dual-DVI outputs. As it tuns out, I think there's already one out there from Asus, and it's an nvidia card... but I don't yet have a PCI-E motherboard. I'm pretty sure that'll be my next major upgrade splurge: nforce4 mobo, AMD64 processor, and PCI-E dual-DVI video card. It'll probably be another three or four months or so before that happens, though, and by that time ATI might have a decent dual-DVI offering. No telling what I'll get at this point.
[B]
As for getting an nvidia card... I'm not about to spend more money on another video card until I can do it on a PCI Express product with dual-DVI outputs. As it tuns out, I think there's already one out there from Asus, and it's an nvidia card... but I don't yet have a PCI-E motherboard. I'm pretty sure that'll be my next major upgrade splurge: nforce4 mobo, AMD64 processor, and PCI-E dual-DVI video card. It'll probably be another three or four months or so before that happens, though, and by that time ATI might have a decent dual-DVI offering. No telling what I'll get at this point. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yeah, buy a nforce4 mobo and 2x Geforce 6800 GT or Ultra and use SLI, I bet you'd get some great results in 3dmark2001 with that. :D
Driver "radeon"
You'll need to comment out all the extra options too.
Have you tried it with just the cinema display plugged in?
Has anyone on the gentoo forums mentioned anything about using cinema displays in X?
[B]To not use the firegl drivers, change the driver line to read
Driver "radeon"[/B][/QUOTE]
Gotcha.
[QUOTE][B]Have you tried it with just the cinema display plugged in?[/B][/QUOTE]
Now that you mention it, no, I haven't; I'll give that a shot.
[QUOTE][B]Has anyone on the gentoo forums mentioned anything about using cinema displays in X? [/B][/QUOTE]
Yup. Not much, but a little; there was one recent thread started by a guy with the same problem I have, and one older thread where someone asked if it was possible to do. That seems to be it, though.
Do what Biggles said, use the radeon driver and setup a xinerama in the normal x way, rather than relying on the ati drivers to work.
Bekenn, there's a new ATI Linux driver out for xorg ([url]http://ati.com/support/drivers/linux/radeon-linux.html[/url]), this does include support for the type of monitor setup you want.