Two graphics cards and three monitors - how to?

[Liam Proven]

On 14 October 2011 21:17, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I am trying to convert my son to ubuntu and is now trying it
> (Oneiric).  Unfortunately he "needs" three monitors.  He has an
> onboard ATI Radeon HD3300 graphics controller with a monitor on it and
> an NVidia Gforce GTS250 with another monitor and a TV.  With the
> onboard controller enabled in bios then only that monitor works.  If
> he disables that one then he is able to use the nvidia controller with
> the other monitor and the tv
>
> I have googled for how to get all three going and while there are a
> number of hits that look hopeful they are mostly rather old so I don't
> know how relevant they are now.  Can anyone point me in the right
> direction?  I fear a dose of xorg.conf is approaching, which is an
> area in which I have very little experience.

I've set up similar in the past. I found that using dissimilar
graphics cards caused a world of pain. Now, OK, this was on Windows,
but still.

I'd recommend going all-nVidia, myself, but all-ATI might also help.
Using a mixture of both means 2 different proprietary binary drivers
are required, which is not going to be simple or easy, I would expect.

The easiest but most expensive way would probably be to disable the
onboard controller, remove the GTS250 and replace it with a
triple-head card. Again, in my limited experience, nVidia's Linux
support is better than AMD/ATI's.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • MSN: lproven at hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508