I have 3 monitors which I “used” to use on Windows, for all my graphic/editing/movie needs… Now I have x1 VGA monitor which I use through the VGA port, x1 HDTV which I use through the HD port on my laptop, and the laptop monitor itself. Now the problem is I can’t seem to get them working together. The HDTV will pick-up on booting up, but after the login screen comes up, the laptop kind of disconnects itself from the TV and then won’t pick it up, or the monitor with the VGA connection. Something is going wrong somewhere, could someone help? coughmarkcough :
Dunno… is there anything in nvidia-settings ? … I’ve never set up multiple monitors in Linux, and I don’t have a system with an nVidia card handy.
You do have an nVidia card don’t you ?
Yup I have a nVidia GeForce 9500m GS. I’ve check, Compiz Settings, Check nVidia settings, & even checked the config settings menu in settings panel 
the laptop doesn’t pick the other 2 monitors up, only the generic laptop one, and I know the VGA & HD cable ports work because I did use them on Win Vista (ew). :
I’ll see if I can dig anything up… does Natty still have an xorg.conf when using the nvidia drivers ?
gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
let me know what’s contained there (if anything).
[EDIT]
If you go into Monitors preferences, is the -
Same image on all monitors box greyed out ?
Yeah, Natty still uses the Xorg.config when use the drivers, and yes it is greyed out.
Erm… so what’s in it ?
This is what’s in it.
Section "Device" Identifier "Default Device" Option "NoLogo" "True" EndSection
I would have expected a lot more than that… but things may have changed in Natty… I’ll see what I can find.
Oke doke, please hurry I need my monitors working ASAP.
Try this:
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
then
sudo nvidia-xconfig
then
sudo nvidia-settings
(you may have to reboot at this point)
Now see if the other monitors are now detected in monitor preferences.
If anything goes wrong… boot into failsafe low graphics mode (or from a LiveCD) then rename/copy the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak to /etc/X11/xorg.conf with:
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.broken
then
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak /etc/X11/xorg.conf
then reboot.
[EDIT]
Sorry, but this is one of those times that “please hurry” isn’t going to make a difference I’m afraid… if I find anything, you’ll know 30 seconds later 
You never know, maybe someone else with similar hardware will jump in with an answer… anyone ?
Right, currently booted up in the LiveCD, as you’ve guessed things went wrong… Basically it seems that when I log on, the HDTV will be the main, and then when the login screen boots up it’ll change to the laptop monitor, which was fine except the VGA/DVI monitor didn’t come… So I went back to the nVidia settings for the server, made the laptop and the TV as a twinview and the VGA monitor as a seperate X… so I save the config file and then reboot. As it loads back up again, the TV does its thing a shows GRUB until it gets to the login screen. I got to the login screen and the TV goes off (which it shouldn’t as it’s in twinview now :o) but the VGA monitor comes on as does the laptop monitor… i’ll try just making them all seperate X’s, maybe it’ll work better that way? Anyway, currently loading the old xorg.config.
EDIT: Ok making them all seperate X’s didn’t work either. Doesn’t look like Xorg wants to manage all the monitors, it’ll handle 2 monitors fine, but it seems like anymore than that and it’s just a problem. Gonna go do some research see if I can find something that’ll work properly. I’ll post back here if I find anything that works. At least you helped my laptop discover the monitors 
thanks mark!
Searched for a little while there, seems everyone using nVidia graphic card and trying to use 3 monitors haven’t had much luck either. So instead of fooling around with the Xorg.config anymore I’m just going to use the VGA/DVI monitor and the laptop monitor for just now, hopefully this will be fixed in 11.10 or nVidia update the drivers to work with Unity.
What’s the contents of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf now ?
Can you now get the HDTV to display at all after the login screen ?
I can get it to work when I use it in Twinview with either the monitor or laptop, but it won’t run in a Separate X with another Separate X.
My Xorg.config now:
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 270.29 (buildd@roseapple) Fri Feb 25 14:43:24 UTC 2011Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Layout0”
Screen 0 “Screen0” 0 0
InputDevice “Keyboard0” “CoreKeyboard”
InputDevice “Mouse0” “CorePointer”
Option “Xinerama” “0”
EndSectionSection “Files”
EndSectionSection “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 "Acer P193W" HorizSync 30.0 - 82.0 VertRefresh 50.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS"EndSection
Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Monitor1”
VendorName “Unknown”
ModelName “Seiko/Epson”
HorizSync 30.0 - 75.0
VertRefresh 60.0
EndSectionSection “Device”
Identifier “Device0”
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA Corporation”
BoardName “GeForce 9500M GS”
EndSectionSection “Device”
Identifier “Device1”
Driver “nvidia”
VendorName “NVIDIA Corporation”
BoardName “GeForce 9500M GS”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0”
Screen 1
EndSectionSection “Screen”
Removed Option “TwinView” “1”
Removed Option “metamodes” “CRT: 1360x768 +0+0, DFP: nvidia-auto-select +1360+0”
Removed Option “TwinView” “0”
Removed Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “DFP-0”
Removed Option “metamodes” “CRT: 1360x768 +0+0”
Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "1" Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0" Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1360x768 +0+0, DFP: nvidia-auto-select +1360+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSectionEndSection
Section “Screen”
Identifier “Screen1”
Device “Device1”
Monitor “Monitor1”
DefaultDepth 24
Option “TwinView” “0”
Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “DFP-0”
Option “metamodes” “DFP: nvidia-auto-select +0+0”
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
First off, use the “NVidia XServer Settings” GUI to generate your xorg.conf, indeed if you don’t have an Xorg.conf this will make one from scratch the first time you run it.
So, are you expecting to see the “same display” on all three monitors, or are you expecting each monitor to act independently and give you three different displays?
If the former, I wouldn’t expect this to work so well on Linux as typically all three screens would have different resolutions … I know on my laptop when I use the function keys to switch the VGA on, it switches the LCD off in hardware.
If you’re expecting a different display on each screen, that would imply your laptop had a multi-head card in it, which would make it quite a nice laptop … but the Nvidia driver should auto-detect this for you … the GUI will present all the screens it can “see” graphically and all you should have to do is “enable” the screens you that aren’t lit (select screen, click ‘configure’, select twinview etc…) , save the settings, then log out and in again.
I have been, because the Ubuntu settings only detect the laptop monitor where as the nVidia settings detect all three screens.
I’m expecting to see all three screens act differently for instance. If I move a windows from screen 0, to screen 2 and that screen would have the same ability as screen 0 & 1. I’ve tried many different configurations but I just can’t seem to get all of them to work in Ubuntu, kind of a P.I.T.A.
I’ve made them all the same resolution as the laptop, or close to it.
Laptop - 1366x768
HDTV - 1360x768
DVI/VGA - 1360x768
Ofcourse the TV & DVI/VGA monitors are far more capable of handling a resolution of 1920x1080.
I’ve tried many different configurations MP, but like I said in a post some near the top, I can’t get them to work simultaneously. Xorg, will disable the HDTV.
Ok, in which case you will “probably” find that there is a switch or feature in the Nvidia driver you need to enable by hand.
If you download the source for the Nvidia driver, that’s probably the easier way to get access to the available options, from memory there’s a readme in there which documents what can/can’t be set and how.
Well this is a laptop, so for some reason I “wouldn’t” expect there to be a feature/switch that I’d have to enable by hand, but I could be wrong. How will I be able to find out which nVidia driver I’m currently using to get the source for it?
Step 1 done, then
I get this after typing
sudo nvidia-xconfig
peter@Petes-ubuntu-pc:~$ sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
[sudo] password for peter:
peter@Petes-ubuntu-pc:~$ sudo nvidia-xconfig
WARNING: Unable to locate/open X configuration file.
New X configuration file written to ‘/etc/X11/xorg.conf’
peter@Petes-ubuntu-pc:~$
So step 3 not done…
It just means you haven’t created an xorg.config yet, which the nvidia-settings need. If you do:
sudo nautilus
in terminal -
You’ll bring up the root privileged nautilus window. If you click on a tab at the right called “Filesystem” or similar. (This is your hdd) you should be brought to where your file system files are. Scroll to etc/X11 then in there look for a file called xorg.conf if it’s there, then you’ve can use the nvidia-settings, if not just open the nvidia-settings control panel and it’ll make one for you automatically.
NOTE - Do NOT touch anything to with your file system unless stated otherwise. It’s a potential hazard to your whole computer. Do as instructed and you’ll be fine.