Ubuntu 11.04 Dual Monitor issues

[KSoD]

Alright I will admit that my knowledge of Ubuntu is lacking. Severely!

But to be blunt if I can't figure this out I will be formatting and reinstalling Windows on the whole drive cause it is straight up pointless for me to dual boot when I can't make use of my hardware.

Situation is this. Ubuntu will not make use of my 2nd monitor. It shows my wallpaper. Whoopie! But if i try to drag and drop anything to it, it just rolls over to the left side of my main screen. So not worth it to see a wallpaper.

I have installed the nVidia drivers. I have tried TwinView as well as Separate X Screens. I have not tried to manually configure the xorg.conf file cause I have no idea and really do not want to crash X and not have a GUI. I do not know enough about Linux to use Terminal and fix it if something goes wrong.

I did figure out how to get F@H SMP working. That is a bonus. But Unity is turning out to be a royal pain n my rear. I cant find anything like I used to and find myself getting more and more frustrated with Ubuntu.

So please for the love of all things sane help.

Where is the System>Administration options now? I can find System Settings but nothing that deals with Admin anymore.

I am lost with Unity. It looks pretty but my goodness I am about ready to fold and go back to Windows.

 

[MindoverMaster]

The system Admin/prefernces in on the drop down on the far right, where you shut down and stuff. It was all grouped in one.

Did you try anything in Compiz?

 

[KSoD]

The only thing I see on that is the System Settings, which is the same screen I already found.

Haven't tried anything in Compiz yet cause I dont think that it will do any good if I cant get Ubuntu to work with the dual monitors by default. The Monitors screen only shows 1 monitor listed as Unknown, but yet my nVidia X Server settings shows them both and is setup properly. I just dont get it. Havent had this much trouble getting dual monitors to work in Ubuntu since 7.04.

*Edit*

Alright I figured it out, somewhat. I restarted yet again after installing another nVidia driver and am running in TwinView Mode. I finally got use of my 2nd monitor. Dont really like TwinView but since it finally allowed me to get use of my 2nd monitor I wont complain much. Now I have to get some Toolbars or something going on there.

 

[Jayce]

System - Administration has been slightly re-vamped. Now they are using a "system settings" control panel. This panel has been available for about a year or so, but you had to edit the top Gnome bar and hit the pretty little checkbox to enable it. I found it months ago and began using it and actually preferred it since it has all of the good stuff in there. Anyway, this "system settings" control panel is at the top right. If you click there you should have a shutdown menu, along with the system setting option. That is where Nvidia and ATI control centers show up after you install their drivers.

Graphic drivers are one of the very few things that requires a Linux box to reboot, mostly due to the obvious nature of it effecting the video output. I have always used Nvidia, and I have always used twinview. It just works for the dual screen setup I need, so I can't offer anything in the separate X screen area that you were tinkering with. My method has always been pretty much the same. Open the Nvidia control panel (recalling this from memory best I can since I'm away from home on a laptop) and the 2nd option down on the left side has the monitor configuration. Within there you have to enable the 2nd screen (like I said, I chose twinview) and set the resolutions accordingly.

Within that screen there is also an option to export to xorg.conf or something. I know in the past I've used it, which writes changes directly to xorg. Recently I'm not sure I've used it. If you find your settings are working spot-on whenever you set them, BUT a reboot is constantly changing them back to defaults, then try using that option and see what it gets you. Of course, it's always good to back up your xorg first. I'm nearly positive it does this for you, though.

Now... about Unity with dual screen. I participated in a question/answer IRC session with the big guy himself, Mark Shuttleworth, and I asked lots and lots of questions to the poor guy. Unity dual screen is one that came his way from me, being that I discovered (with having my 2nd monitor on the left) that I could not re-position the Unity bar to be on the left side of the right monitor. Make sense? Unity defaults itself to the very very very left of the screen space it has to work with. With my two monitors, that means it's on the very left of the left-most monitor, which irritates me.

I have:
Left Monitor/Unity - Main Monitor.

I want:
Left Monitor - Main Monitor/Unity.

I was told that within 2 weeks they will be doing a crunch on this and that this feature is well on its way to come into the spotlight. That being said, it's just a matter of time. I wanted to bring this to attention in case it was pertaining to your situation at all.

 

[KSoD]

I have already gotten used to the whole TwinView aspect. So that was quick to overcome. Dont like having the taskbar at the top of both screens but I can deal easily with that.

Funny my nVidia control panel doesnt show in that drop down menu. Just like I dont see any check boxes for anything at all in there. So yeah still lost on that one.

I would like to get my F@H GPU Setup working. But oh well. I will live with what i got going now.

 

[iFargle]

Ive always used twinview... I don't use unity on my desktop because of the redundant top bar.