[Sussex] 2 monitors, one machine

[Chris Jones]

Hi

On 8:57:58 pm 05/10/2005 "Rob Malpass" <rob at malpass133.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> I've decided to look into connecting two monitors to one PC -
> should've done it years ago - long story.   Let's forget the OS for

yes, you should have. dualhead rocks! :)

> My current graphics card (don't know what it is OTTOMH) has two

lspci or one of the X logs in /var/log/ should tell you.

> pins - I think they're called S-Video.   I'm certain both can be used

indeed they are.

> So assuming whatever driver supports simultaneous monitors (Dualview

That is an assumption you will need to verify by finding out what kind of
card you have.

> for example on XP, Xinerama (I believe) on Linux) I need a cable /
> adaptor to connect an S video to a standard VGA (because the only

I don't believe there will be such a "cable". you can probably get a
converter though - the kind of thing people would use to hook up a console
to a monitor. The quality will be awful though, especially for finely
detailed desktop fonts. Also you'll have the same resolution issues you had
with the TV, although you ought to be able to get 1024x768.

> spare 19" monitor I have only supports 15 pin VGA).   A search around

I really really really wouldn't bother trying to drive a 19" monitor off an
SVHS port, it's going to be unusable.

Instead I would recommend picking up a cheap PCI/AGP Geforce card that
supports Twinview (which is mostly all of them from GF4 onwards I think).
That will let you have two VGA outputs and the card will be able to drive
both of them at decent resolutions (I have a GeForce 5900XT driving two 19"
monitors, both at 1600x1200)

Cheers,
---
Chris Jones
  cmsj at tenshu.net
  www.tenshu.net