[clue-tech] Dual monitors with 2 video cards?

[Bruce Ediger]

Just to close this out on a technical level, you can indeed run
two PCI video cards, with two monitors attached.

I personally could not get the BIOS (Gateway, circa 1997) on this all-intel
machine to turn on the built-in video, if it detected a PCI video card.
The machine had a SiS-based card, and I found a 1995 Matrox Millenium
in my junk box.  Configuration (via /etc/X11/xorg.conf file) of the X server
wasn't even that difficult.  The X server now seems to output messages
that actually kind of make sense.  The only sticky problem I had was that
"lspci" puts out bus IDs in hex (01:0c.00) while xorg.conf needs to have
them in decimal (1:12:00).

So, now I have this machine with 2 ordinary PCI video cards running
two monitors, one of the "LeftOf" the other.  The on-screen mouse
pointer changes screens, but individual windows do not change screesn.

After more gooling, I found this page with a more or less coherent
explanation:

http://aufrecht.org/blog/one-entry?entry_id=32962

I haven't tried the "Xinerama" thing yet, but I intend to after I fiddle
around a bit more.

-- 
Bruce Ediger
720-932-1954
eballen1 at qwest.net