safe, reversable way for dual screens in X11

does any one know of a safe & reversible way of enabling dual screen support in X11?? plz don't tell me to use the nvidia-settings program to do this tried it before and it broke my X server, forcing me to reinstall ubuntu. i did edit my xorg.conf file once, but the dual screen result was very problematic and hard to reverse. does any one know of another way of doing this?

 

make a backup of your xorg.conf file. It's, like, totally reversible!

Really, this is all that configures everything to do with X.

 

ummmm... no help
yes, now i know to make a back-up (actually have one sitting in my x11 directory right now), but i need a way of getting perfect dual-screen support (clone screens) in ubuntu. doing it the hard way by editing my xorg.conf file gives me mis-matched screens, where the one on my computer is responsive but the one on the TV is not. i suspect it might have something to do w/ compiz fusion being on though, so i'll give it another shot w/o it.

 

I didn't mean my reply to be smarmy, I apologise. However, a backup is a surefire way of making things both SAFE and REVERSIBLE.

In any case, you didn't specify what dual monitor support means to you; I see now you are interested in cloning screens, which means you likely want nvidia's TwinView with “TwinViewOrientation” set to “Clone”.

See http://www.ubuntugeek.com/dual-monitors-with-nvidia.html

for some discussion on the topic, including some sample xorg.conf files.

The relevant xorg.conf settings (will need to be tweaked by you):
Section “Device”
Identifier “Videocard0″
Driver “nvidia”
Option “ConnectedMonitor” “DFP-0,CRT-0″
Option “UseDisplayDevice” “DFP-0,CRT-0″
Option “TwinView” “true”
Option “TwinViewOrientation” “Clone”
Option “TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder” “DFP-0,CRT-0″
Option “MonitorLayout” “LFP,LFP+CRT”
Option “metamodes” “DFP-0: 1024×768 +0+0, CRT-0: 1024×768 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280×1024 +0+0, CRT-0: 1280×1024 +0+0; DFP-0: 1024×768 +0+0, CRT-0: NULL”
EndSection

 

yes, i tried this but i had problems because i may have had compiz fusion on. i will again w/ it off and hopefully come back w/ good news...

 

good news!!! tried to get dual screen support again w/o compiz fusion on, and, after a little hassle, managed to get it up and running w/ no problems. turns out that i can even enable compiz fusion even while in clone-screens mode!!! sweet!!! thanks for the link jeffsmythe