I am trying to switch my PC from Windows to Linux Mint 15. I have three monitors that work very well in Windows. After installing Mint (and seeing that it naturally only uses 1 monitor) I tried to use "Displays" to add the other two; however, doing this does not utilize my two Nvidia GeForce 9600 video cards. The screens flashes repeatedly and the entire system slows down. I have installed nvidia drivers using sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
and by downloading and running the "NVidia...run" files provided by Nvidia. Then, using the nvidia Server x config, enabled the other two monitors. Whenever I do this and restart the x service, all three monitors are enabled but Cinnamon crashes repeatedly (leaving a strange, unusable desktop where all tray icons and menus are triplicated on the primary monitor).
How can I get all 3 monitors to work (One desktop spanning three monitors)?
I have tried searching all over and while this is discussed many times in many places, none of these discussions are both up to date and comprehensive (and the few that are close lead to the above results).
I will add any information necessary to the question.
Info:
Returned from inxi -Gx
:
Graphics: Card-1: NVIDIA G94 [GeForce 9600 GT] bus-ID: 01:00.0
Card-2: NVIDIA G94 [GeForce 9600 GT] bus-ID: 02:00.0
X.Org: 1.13.3 driver: nvidia Resolution: 4320x900
GLX Renderer: GeForce 9600 GT/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 304.88 Direct Rendering: Yes
Returned from cinnamon --version
:
Cinnamon 1.8.8
This is a working Nvidia generated xorg.conf for a single screen:
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 304.88 (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06) Wed Mar 27 15:32:58 PDT 2013
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection
Section "Files"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 28.0 - 33.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
This is not a working Nvidia generated xorg.conf:
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 304.88 (buildd@lamiak) Wed Apr 10 16:20:15 UTC 2013
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection
Section "Files"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "HannStar Display Corp Hanns.G HW191"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 49.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: unknown, VertRefresh source: unknown
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "HannStar Display Corp Hanns.G HW191"
HorizSync 0.0 - 0.0
VertRefresh 0.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 9600 GT"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 9600 GT"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Stereo" "0"
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Stereo" "0"
Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1440+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
cinnamon --version
)? Cinnamon is still new and under active development, I had trouble with my 2 screens not too long ago which was fixed when I upgraded to Cinnamon 1.8.2./etc/X11/xorg.conf
file generated by nvidia-settings and also explain what your desired setup is. Do you want one desktop spanning the 3 screens or mirrored desktops or separate desktops on each screen etc.