Setup dual monitors in Fedora 6

Hardware: ATI Radeon x1300, ViewSonic LCD monitors(In fact, It can be any LCD);

Software: Fedora 6

The most important is to update ATI Driver for Fedora. Fedora 6 supports ATI Radeon x1300 by default. But it does not support two monitors(or the two monitors look like a mirror of each other).

1. Install ATI driver for fedora(logon as root)

rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
yum install kmod-fglrx xorg-x11-drv-fglrx
yum update kmod-fglrx xorg-x11-drv-fglrx

fglrx? Yes. It is for ATI Radeon.

2. Make a copy of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, such as cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.save, in case of any exception.

3. Open a terminal:

# export PATH=/opt/ati/bin:$PATH

/opt/ati/bin/aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=right

aticonfig --dtop=horizontal --overlay-on=1

aticonfig --resolution=0,2048x768,1024x768

4. edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. In my case its content is below.

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier "single head configuration"

Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0

InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

Section "Files"

EndSection

Section "Module"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Keyboard0"

Driver "kbd"

Option "XkbModel" "pc105"

Option "XkbLayout" "us"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"

Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"

Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"

Option "DPMS" "true"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"

Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"

Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"

Option "DPMS" "true"

EndSection

Section "Device"

Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"

Driver "fglrx"

Option "DesktopSetup" "horizontal"

Option "OverlayOnCRTC2" "1"

EndSection

Section "Device"

Identifier "aticonfig-Device[1]"

Driver "fglrx"

EndSection

Section "Screen"

Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"

Device "aticonfig-Device[0]"

Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"

Viewport 0 0

Depth 24

Modes "2560x1024" "1280x1024"

EndSubSection

EndSection

Section "Screen"

Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]"

Device "aticonfig-Device[1]"

Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"

DefaultDepth 24

Option "Xinerama" "on"

Option "Clone" "off"

SubSection "Display"

Viewport 0 0

Depth 24

Modes "1280x1024"

EndSubSection

EndSection

5. In a termainl, input “init 3” to close the X window and turn to the Text Mode.

6. IN the Text Mode, logon as root. Input “init 5” to restart X window. As we can see, It works!

7. If any exception occurs and Fedora can not start, please restore /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the backup copy.