Dual Head on Debian Squeeze with nouveau and xrandr -- Charlie Harvey

I recently got myself a 24-inch monitor. I wanted to keep using my trusty 17 inch as well - to use as a secondary monitor for system monitoring, playing music and other background tasks. There is a closed-source nvidia driver. But I’ll be using the open source nouveau driver (after trying with no success the nv open source driver). This is a writeup of what worked for me.

dual head monitors photo
Two monitors is better than one!

The setup

Its worth knowing all of your setup before you start, hwinfo --gfxcard will tell you your graphics card. Here's mine:

Debian Squeeze
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 LE graphics card
24 inch 1900x1200 monitor attached to DVI port
17 inch 1280x1024 monitor attached to VGA port

Install the nouveau driver

Make sure you uninstall the nvidia proprietary driver if you’ve had it installed before. I had to ice its libglx and reinstall xserver-xorg and xserver-xorg-core to get a working glx library. Gnarly.

Add the experimental repository to /etc/apt/sources list

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian experimental main

Next make sure module assistant is installed.

# aptitude update && aptitude install module-assistant

Update module assistant.

# m-a update

Compile and install drm.

# DRM_MODULES=nouveau m-a a-i drm

Now install the driver itself

# aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

Edit xorg.conf

Back up your xorg.conf first. You really don't want to forget this!

# cp /etc/X11/xorg.cong /etc/X11/xorg.conf.working

Generate a blank xorg.conf, using dexconf

# dexconf

Tell X to use nouveau driver, in your new xorg.conf

Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" Driver "nouveau" EndSection

Add your monitors in xorg.conf (getting rid of original monitor section).

Section "Monitor" Identifier "Screen0" EndSection

Section "Monitor" Identifier "Screen1" EndSection

Here's the clever bit, in the screen section you need to define a virtual screen. Add the horizontal resolutions of the two monitors together, I added an extra 20 pixels for luck.

Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen" Monitor "Screen0" Device "Configured Video Device" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Virtual 3200 1200 EndSubSection EndSection

I needed to disable AIGLX. Not sure if this is a nouveau problem or what.

Section "ServerFlags" Option "AIGLX" "false" EndSection

OK. Now we have a nice xorg.conf. Restart X (ctrl-backspace should work). If you get a blank screen you can always drop back to using the vesa driver. And check /var/log/Xorg.0.log. That's how I found out about the AIGLX thing.

Here's my complete xorg.conf:



xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)

2009-03-07 Dual head setup

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier  "Generic Keyboard"
  Driver    "kbd"
  Option    "XkbRules"  "xorg"
  Option    "XkbModel"  "pc105"
  Option    "XkbLayout"  "gb"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier  "Configured Mouse"
  Driver    "mouse"
EndSection

Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
  Driver "nouveau"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
       Identifier  "Screen0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier  "Screen1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
  Identifier  "Screen"
  Monitor    "Screen0"
  Device    "Configured Video Device"
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth 24
    Virtual 3200 1200
  EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags" Option "AIGLX" "false" EndSection

Getting xrandr working

Xrandr should be installed already. If not:

aptitude install x11-xserver-utils

Lets try stuff out dynamically. Both screens first.

xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 1920x0 --rotate normal --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

If you get a warning about the virtual screen size being too small, you set it wrong in xorg.conf. Google can do maths for you; add the sizes of your screens together. Now lets try a single monitor.

xrandr --output VGA-0 --off --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

Now we want to automate our monitor setup. I wanted to use my big screen most of the time, but to have a key binding to switch the little one on. I made a subdirectory called screens and put two sheel scripts in it

both.sh



!/bin/sh

xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 1920x0 --rotate normal --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

big.sh



!/bin/sh

xrandr --output VGA-0 --off --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

Make sure that they're both executable.



cd screen

chmod 755 big.sh

chmod 755 both.sh

Hotkey setup

We'll set up some Metacity keybindings. Fire up gconf-editor and go to apps/metacity/global_keybindings. Set "run_command_2" to "<Shift><Control>F7" and "run_command_3" to "<Shift><Control>F8". Now go to apps/metacity/keybinding_commands and set "command_2" to "/path/to/big.sh" and "command_3" to "/path/to/both.sh". Quit gconf editor and test.

We’ve got two annoyances to sort out now. We want the default monitor set up when gdm starts and Gnome places the panel on my second monitor, beacuse my second monitor is actually the first in the opinion of my graphics card. Thanks nvidia!

GDM setup

This one is easy, copy the xrandr line from big.sh into /etc/gdm/Init/Default.

xrandr --output VGA-0 --off --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

Done.

Panel Setup

This is really irritating. Gnome doesn't seem to remember where I put my panel. I eventually grabbed fbpanel from apt - its a bit faffy to setup, but works remarkably well.

# aptitude install fbpanel

To set up, edit the ~/.fbpanel/default file; remember to set your panel the same width as your monitor. This is mine:



fbpanel <profile> config file

see http://fbpanel.sf.net/docs.html for complete configuration guide

Global {
    edge = top
    allign = left
    margin = 0
    widthtype = pixel
    width = 1920
    height = 26
    transparent = true
    tintcolor = #ffffff
    alpha = 43
    setdocktype = true
    setpartialstrut = true
    autohide = false
    heightWhenHidden = 2
}

Plugin {
    type = space
    config {
        size = 2
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = menu
    config {
        image = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/star.png
        systemmenu {
        }
        separator {
        }
        item {
            icon = gnome-settings
            name = configure
            image = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/gnome-setting.svg
            command = configure
        }
        item {
            icon = gnome-terminal
            name = terminal
            image = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/gnome_terminal.svg
            action = /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator
        }
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = space
    config {
        size = 5
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = launchbar
    config {
        button {
            icon = gnome-terminal
            tooltip = Terminal
            action = /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator
        }
        button {
            icon = mozilla-firefox
            tooltip = Firefox web browser
            action = firefox
        }
        button {
            icon = vim
            tooltip = Vim
            action = gvim
        }
        button {
            icon = f-spot
            tooltip = f-spot
            action = f-spot
        }
        button {
            icon = gimp
            tooltip = GIMP
            action = gimp
        }
        button {
            icon = synaptic
            tooltip = synaptic
            action = synaptic
        }
        button {
            icon = evolution
            tooltip = evolution
            action = evolution
        }
        button {
            icon = rhythmbox
            tooltip = rhythmbox
            action = rhythmbox
        }
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = space
    config {
        size = 8
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = taskbar
    expand = true
    config {
        ShowIconified = true
        ShowMapped = true
        ShowAllDesks = false
        tooltips = true
        IconsOnly = false
        MaxTaskWidth = 150
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = space
    config {
        size = 7
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = pager
    config {
        showwallpaper = true
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = icons
    config {
        DefaultIcon = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/default.xpm
        application {
            icon = gnome-terminal
            Image = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/gnome_terminal.svg
            ClassName = XTerm
        }
        application {
            icon = gnome-terminal
            Image = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/gnome_terminal.svg
            ClassName = mlterm
        }
        application {
            icon = gnome-terminal
            Image = /usr/share/fbpanel/images/gnome_terminal.svg
            ClassName = URxvt
        }
        application {
            icon = mozilla-firefox
            ClassName = Firefox-bin
        }
        application {
            icon = mozilla-firefox
            ClassName = Firefox
        }
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = space
    config {
        size = 5
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = genmon
    config {
        Command = echo MemFree: $(grep "MemFree" /proc/meminfo|cut -b 13-30)
        PollingTime = 2
        TextSize = medium
        TextColor = #000000
    }
}

Plugin {
    type = tray
}

Plugin { type = dclock config { ClockFmt = %R TooltipFmt = %A %x Action = xmessage Please define some command & color = #000000 } }

Now we'll modify the big.sh and both.sh scripts to start and kill fbpanel as appropriate.

both.sh



!/bin/sh

xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 1920x0 --rotate normal --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal fbpanel&

big.sh



!/bin/sh

killall fbpanel xrandr --output VGA-0 --off --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

Whew! Now you have a dual monitor setup, its probably time to grab a cider.

Charlie Harvey

Dual Head on Debian Squeeze with nouveau and xrandr

The setup

Install the nouveau driver

Edit xorg.conf

xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)

2009-03-07 Dual head setup

Getting xrandr working

both.sh

!/bin/sh

big.sh

!/bin/sh

cd screen

chmod 755 big.sh

chmod 755 both.sh

Hotkey setup

GDM setup

Panel Setup

fbpanel <profile> config file

see http://fbpanel.sf.net/docs.html for complete configuration guide

both.sh

!/bin/sh

big.sh

!/bin/sh

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