Fedora Core 3 (FC3 - Linux) on Sager 9860 - NVIDIA Setup - TwinView Dual X Mode

This post is one of several documenting the installation and configuration of Fedora Core 3 on my Sager 9860. There is a "table of contents" post here .

======================================================

This is a weird mode. You run two completely seperate instances of your window manager (KDE in my case). One on each monitor. The trick is to basically double-up on all the sections in the xorg.conf file.

Some notes:

1) Note that the "Screen" entry in the "ServerLayout" section is a little different than you usually see.

2) I have an external keyboard plugged into the 9860 as well. So I've added a second "kbd" driver. I'm not sure if it is needed or not.

3) I have a second "InputDevice" section for "DevInputMice." This stops Quake3 based games from interpretting a left+right mouse click as a middle click. Very helpful when fragging!

4) The built-on screen for the 9860 is always "DFP-0."

5) You need the "IgnoreEDID" option for the Sager 9860 screen. I have it in the section for my external monitor as well. But I don't think I need it there.

6) Note that the "screen" section is a little different than you're used to seeing.

7) VERY IMPORTANT!!! - The only way to get this to work is to boot your 9860 with the external monitor DETACHED. I run with "init 3" so I boot to a text screen. After the machine is completely booted, then I attach the external monitor, then issue the command "startx." It might work from "init 5" mode, but you'll have to restart X after attaching the external monitor....not sure about this as I haven't tried it. If anyone figures out how to make this work without the process of detaching and attaching the external monitor, I'd love to hear it.

There are some annoyances while running in Dual X mode:

1) As you set your options for KDE on the external monitor, they don't always take effect immediately. I had to restart X to see some of the changes I wanted to make to the desktop environment.

2) You can't drag windows from one monitor to another, but the mouse will move between the two based on the "Screen 1" line in the "ServerLayout" section.