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Ubuntu to get new Dualview UI

techtoppicks.com — With upcoming releases of Ubuntu, expect to see a new Dualview UI for using two monitors.

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  • tabaczka, on 10/11/2007, -44/+5Down?
    • donwilson2, on 10/11/2007, -84/+17Welcome to Windows 98
    • soda0289, on 10/11/2007, -30/+7Mirror Mirror on the wall:
      http://72.14.209.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftechtoppicks.com%2Farchive%2Fubuntu-to-get-better-dualview-support%2F&btnG=Search
    • grogan, on 10/11/2007, -98/+15Gee... they are making a tool to enable dual monitors....

      Call me when they catch up with Windows and OSX.
    • Tsen, on 10/11/2007, -27/+148Call me when MS and Apple give away their OS free.
    • straps, on 10/11/2007, -22/+46Continue Using your Black Box and pay attention at the Trojan that is sending me your data...ohhh...you don't have the source code of your OS...damn
    • Fordi, on 10/11/2007, -2/+104Ubuntu, and indeed all linuxes have had dual-screen support for a while. The new UI just allows the user to control it without going all ***** on stuff in /etc.
    • geniusj, on 10/11/2007, -22/+10@donwilson2,
      Windows 98? Try the Macintosh II in 1987 :).. In fact, the UI for setting up multiple displays was nearly identical to the one they still have, if I recall correctly. Though there might have been capable unix workstations prior.
    • opencoder, on 10/11/2007, -7/+137"Call me when they catch up with Windows and OSX."

      Multiple monitor support has been in X since Xfree. It was just a pain to configure. You had to know exactly what you are doing, and you had to edit the conf file in order to get it working.

      "***** the Ubuntu hype. It's just a digg frontpage buzzword."

      Okay. While I can be nice to grogan. I simply can't stand this kind of trolling. You sir, are an idiot. And believe me I know them when I see them. My job puts me in front quite a great many idiots. Either you are a Windows/Mac loyalist that doesnt even understand what Ubuntu is. Or you are a Linux user that doesn't understand just how awesome Ubuntu is. So, I guess I will explain it to you.

      Linux distributions have a reputation for being notoriously hard to configure. They aren't usually for the average user that knows nothing about computers. They also usually require a great deal of tinkering to get working properly. And almost always you have to go to usr-land or etc-land and edit some incredibly awkward file to get something working. And it usually takes a while. Ubuntu is a flavor of Linux that strives to provide Linux to the masses free of charge and to give to the open source community a better way to use their desktop. They have a dream of a true desktop Linux distribution. It is NOT hype. And it certainly is not a buzzword. Ubuntu is going to be here a long time and you better get used to seeing it.

      As a sidenote and off topic: Has anybody run Fedora 7. I heard it is a large improvement over other distributions and that yum is worlds faster now.

      "ohhh...you don't have the source code of your OS...damn"

      ++, QFT, etc...

      Source code is perhaps the best part of the Linux community. The idea that I can fork an existing project and take it in a new direction is simply amazing. Also, it helps because you can look at other projects that are similar to yours to see how they might have done things if you are lost. And it really helps further the community. I love the freedom.. And with Ubuntu its free beer too, so double win.

    • Theli, on 10/11/2007, -4/+28"Gee... they are making a tool to enable dual monitors...."

      No they are not. They are making a graphical user interface for a function that has existed for a long time.

      I hope this will allow the end user to change the maximum screen resolution using a GUI as that was one of the biggest drawbacks of Ubuntu.Not so much because it was difficult to fix, but because it inflicted so many users.
    • Zeny, on 10/11/2007, -15/+10its so true beryl is so 80s, when will Linux catch to Microsoft and their 2d desktop!
    • stmiller, on 10/11/2007, -3/+25Yes you can actually do more advanced display settings in Linux than in OS X or Windows. Believe it or not...

      http://www.x.org/

    • allywilson, on 10/11/2007, -9/+17@opencoder

      If I could digg you twice - I would.
    • renegadeafk, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10I'm just hoping in the next release I won't have to edit xorg.conf to get my reolution, other distro's I can just select it but ubuntu gives me some bullswhit where the highest res is 1024x768 at 51 hz for my widescreen LCD.
    • Gogogo111, on 10/11/2007, -8/+21@allywilson

      You can digg someone twice, or even three times Just click the green thumb fast, and it will glitch and add a second or third digg. :-)
    • opencoder, on 10/11/2007, -6/+16"You can digg someone twice, or even three times Just click the green thumb fast, and it will glitch and add a second or third digg. :-)"

      Yeah, but that is grossly unethical.
    • CodeNinj, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18"You can digg someone twice, or even three times Just click the green thumb fast, and it will glitch and add a second or third digg. :-)"

      and it doesn't actually work... if looks like it goes up by two but if you refresh the page, you can see that it only counts one
    • brundlefly76, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I recently switched from Suse to Ubuntu, and I love it, with one exception, and I wish they would address this before adding another feature:

      *Automated* system repair tools on the LiveCD.

      At the very least, it needs to have a 'boot installed system' and some sort of high-level bootloader repair options like Suse.


    • brundlefly76, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1@opencoder

      >> "Call me when they catch up with Windows and OSX."

      >Multiple monitor support has been in X since Xfree. It was just a pain to configure.

      You mean 'is' a pain to configure - its not fixed yet.
      Then I guess OP's comment is still relevant.

      I tried setting up my dual monitors in Ubuntu last night (even tried NVidia's tool), and it totally sucks - I gave up before I dove into the manual instructions because I didnt want another morning where I woke up to another broken x server.
    • jacobmp92, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Welcome to my block list, koreanannoyance. Please keep all hands inside the ride.

      EDIT: Damn, as soon as I post this the comment is deleted.
    • FutureGuy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"Sweet, what a breakthrough, a graphical way to enable dual monitor, state of the art."

      says my grandmother ;)
  • mikesbaker, on 10/11/2007, -5/+19Now lets get some decent X1900 drivers and I'll be set.
  • marix, on 10/11/2007, -4/+44About damn time!
    • estvir, on 10/11/2007, -5/+17I know, dual monitors is one thing I've always hated about Linux and with my current Ubuntu install I haven't even bothered to try and follow some convoluted tutorial on the ubuntuforums for fear of killing X or something.

      Thank freaking goodness, can't wait to try it.
    • stonedgeek, on 10/11/2007, -6/+9I had so much trouble getting dual monitors to work in ubuntu the first time. The second time, well, that's why I use XP or Vista on my desktop at home.
    • Ltgeo, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12@estvir (#7200661)

      I tried forever to get dual screens in Edgy and never found a solution. However, when I upgraded to Feisty dual screens worked straight away with no editing of configuration files and a fairly easy to use UI. This could be thanks to an upgraded Nvidia TwinView and nothing to do with Ubuntu, I don't know.
    • mooninite, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1RedHat has always had a nice Dual View setup.

      nVidia even ships a nice control panel to configure two -- or more -- monitors.

      Why is this front page news? Just because it's Ubuntu?
  • mikesty, on 10/11/2007, -48/+7This is cool. Dual monitors are cool, kind of silly, especially if they're both CRT, but they're a lot of fun. I'm not sure about productivity, but they're fun.
    • jues, on 10/11/2007, -4/+44Try doing some *work* on your computer and then you will rethink your "kinda silly" statement.
    • estvir, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19People who say dual (Or more) monitors are 'silly' and just 'cool' have simply just never used them, it's one of those "You won't get it till you try it" or "You won't get it if you're ignorant and have a closed mind."

      Out of everyone I know who has gone over to using dual monitors would probably commit suicide if they had to go back to working on one.
    • shableep, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8you know... i've tried the dual screen setup for weeks at a time. never end up making good use of it. honestly, going widescreen was a sweet alternative. when working on projects, i usually have 2 windows open in a horizontal split screen kinda layout. basically almost the same as using 2 monitors... but works better for me for some reason.

      but now... come to think of it, if i got a 4:3 monitor for IM, Browsing and Joost... Oooo. *****. i'd never get anything done.
    • crazybrit, on 10/11/2007, -5/+10I don't like working on dual monitors. Actually, they make it tempting to put stuff like chat windows on my secondary monitor, which makes me less productive.
    • Spr0k3t, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Dual monitors are sweet. Put all of your programming source tree and research on one monitor, throw your design and source code on another. Use multiple desktop spaces for graphics & sound editing.
    • Fordi, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9If you don't know the value of using dual monitors...

      Open up photoshop, drag your work window to one screen, and your tools to the other.

      Open up Scite in one monitor and Firefox with the webpage you're working on in the other.

      Basically, anything that you alt-tab constantly for, get a second monitor and see how easy things get.
    • strictnein, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Just added a spare 15" LCD to my setup so now I'm up to 3 monitors. 24" main, 19" secondary to the right and the 15" to the left.
      The 15" is great for having iTunes open and testing web layouts and whatnot at a lower res, in the the 19" I keep Outlook maximized and, when doing web dev, have my browser window in it. The main screen usually has Dreamweaver or Photoshop or Visual Studio or something else maximized.

      I could live without the third monitor, but I definitely need two now. Even non-tech people I know are adding a second monitor at work. Productivity gains are just huge.
    • broeks, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5My job gave me a 23" widescreen and a 17" 4:3 "sidecar" (sidecar for digg.com that is)
    • nyc2socal, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0Dual screens is a big productivity enhancer.. I have my laptop @ 1600x1200 and an external monitor running at 1600x1200 for a total of 3200x1200.. Running SLED 10 and xinerama and Desktop Effects.. I thought I was productive with XP and screen spanning.. Now I have screen spanning AND multiple viewports.. Most of the time, my other viewports have vmwares running, but it allows me to quickly pivot to the viewport without disrupting (minimizing, maximizing, moving) the current windows in the viewport..
    • mikesty, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Well, good to see my comment was blown way out of proportion.

      "People who say dual (Or more) monitors are 'silly' and just 'cool' have simply just never used them, it's one of those "You won't get it till you try it" or "You won't get it if you're ignorant and have a closed mind."

      Out of everyone I know who has gone over to using dual monitors would probably commit suicide if they had to go back to working on one."

      I'm not sure if I'd kill myself if I had to go back to one monitor, but I have to agree with Crazybrit - that's usually what ends up happening. If I'm doing any sort of editing (video, audio, photo, even word processing), of course I can use the two monitors to increase productivity. By saying that having two monitors is pretty neat, I meant I actually like having two monitors, not that it was some gimmick for idiots. Sorry about that...

      They definitely are ridiculous if you have dual CRTs. I currently have one LCD and a CRT, but it takes up so much desk real estate it is a bit silly.
  • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -2/+36sweet but if anyone here uses an nvidia card, nvidia-settings can easily help you configure dual monitor setups.
    • opencoder, on 10/11/2007, -4/+8I never have luck using the nvidia-settings configuration tool. Xorg just crashes. But I could always be doing something wrong. Which is highly likely.
    • leexy, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2It took me less than 5mns to get up and running yesterday. Literally a click away. I don't know why everyone's bitching...
    • Sparkster185, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1@opencoder: Try using Envy. Worked like a charm for me, as well as my step-dad who has dual monitors.
    • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1@opencoder
      I have helped people setup twinview with nvidia-settings and have had no problems but I prefer modifying my xorg.conf. My only problem with nvidia-settings is that it never remembers that I have read what happens when I play with my clock speeds. Every time I reboot I have to manually change my videocards clock speeds.
  • nullvector, on 10/11/2007, -30/+3Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

    Didn't Microsoft (that evil nasty company that steals from linux) have this in Win98? Even Win98 dialog boxes look better than that.

    Linux would be appealing if it wasn't 9 years behind the times.
    • sarthorn, on 10/11/2007, -8/+26Hmm.. Vista is just now getting the things that GNU/Linux users have enjoyed for quite some time now, things like User Account Control, window effects, etc etc... I agree that Linux and Windows have different features and are good for different things sometimes but saying that Linux is 9 years behind the times because it hasn't had a graphical utility for configuring dual monitors built into the OS is kind of silly, especially considering that some 95%+ of desktop users don't have a dual monitor configuration and won't use suck things anyways. (And furthermore, Linux is just referring to the kernel, if you mean by "linux" you mean the kernel than you are really comparing apples to oranges, linux runs on everything from PS3's to PCs to MACs to toasters to the international space station, some of the above don't even have monitors! (yeah okay so now I'm just ranting, sorry)).
    • khellendros1984, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7The GNU/Linux OS has its own development priorities, and easy-to-use GUI tools are often low on the list. It just (historically) hasn't been meant for the WIndows version of usefulness....more like the kind that lets you log into 5 terminals at once (3 of them being remote) so you can code like mad using command-line tools. When re-purposed as a general-use consumer desktop or workstation, it'll take some shoehorning.

      That being said, it kicks ass for its traditional roles of development environment and server =)
    • srg13, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8"Didn't Microsoft (that evil nasty company that steals from linux) have this in Win98?"

      As people have said before:

      1. X has had this for a long time, it was just quite hard to configure
      2. But, with the nVidia drivers, this can be done pretty easily
  • Junpei, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Dugg mirror got it. http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_to_get_new_Dualview_UI
  • Badspeller, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16I hope so, one thing that always annoyed me when setting up Linux has been dual monitors. I have yet to see a distro let me setup dual screens w/o having to manually edit xorg.conf. After using dual monitors for a while I can't stand single, its like going from 1600x1200 to 800x600
    • jub0r, on 10/11/2007, -4/+6At least you never had to try to understand the Modeline HowTo...
      http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/

      Apparently 1024x768@85Hz wasn't enough information to allow it to display your screen correctly.
      You had to do something like this:
      #Modename "752x564"
      clock horizontal timing vertical timing
      40 752 784 944 1088 564 567 569 611
      44.5 752 792 976 1240 564 567 570 600
    • jub0r, on 10/11/2007, -7/+3digg cut me off..
      40 752 784 944 1088 564 567 569 611
      clock speed, 4 numbers for horizontal timing and 4 numbers for vertical timing.
      Some how that all adds up to 752x564 at who knows what hertz.
    • trogdoor, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12Why are you still using XFree86 ?
    • cquilliam, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10I don't think he is, i think he's just giving an example from memory of years gone by. i know i almost went into a seizure when i read that.
    • darkphoenix939, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2no you still have to do mod lines in xorg 7.1 in some situations like say with an intel driver that does not want to do wide screen and cant get to native rez. but xorg 7.2 fixed that so.......
  • WebCrusader, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Finally. I have been waiting for functional Display properties UI for 3 years. Adjusting Screen properties is big issue in Linux and I hope this would help new users to easily setup Display configuration.

    This UI features extra things as dual view, monitor models list and failsafe mode if something goes wrong. I hope they implement TV out too.
    • TechCF, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Same thing here, though I am VERY happy with the nvidia-settings panel
  • darwin81, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18This is ONE feature that Ubuntu (and Linux in general) was behind in. You don't have to diss on the whole OS over it. Besides you could set it up before, this just makes it a hell of a lot easier.
  • zenwhen, on 10/11/2007, -6/+11There sure is a lot of trolling in here.

    This is pretty awesome. I am glad this has finally been implemented.
  • charlie763, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5The blueprint page on Launchpad
    https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/displayconfig-gtk

    which links to...

    The full specification
    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DisplayConfigGTK
    • vh1`, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1some things to note on that wiki entry:

      out of scope:
      - The tool will not allow to configure more than a dual screen setup.
      - Notifications when new screens are plugged in

      although the first is definitely possible. configuring more than two screens is a whole different ballgame. they do have a good reasoning listed

      and the second is probably something that will come with later releases of Xorg

      one thing that worries me though is that in the screenshots on the wiki, it looks like you'll only be able to define one device driver. when it is fully probable to have two different drivers loaded in X
    • geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+298% of use cases will be someone wanting to hook up a second monitor to a laptop, in which case having more than dual monitor support and supporting multiple drivers is currently not necessary in Ubuntu.

      Setups with more than two monitors are still quite exotic, and anything to make configuring X is better than nothing at all. Ubuntu is Linux for Humans, not Linux for Everyone; there has to be a limit on how far they build out all of their tools and starting small is a great way to get work done.
  • R3j3ct, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5This and my scanner were the only reasons I quit using ubuntu on my desktop... Maybe it's about time to give it another try. I'm loving it on my laptop...
    • JonLatane, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Wow. I've gone through at least a dozen cheap scanners (don't ask why) along with a nice HP All-in-One on Ubuntu, and I never had to do anything to get any of them to work. It was always just "Plug scanner in, start XSane, done!" Are you sure it didn't work, or did you just never try this? Because the first time I was looking forever for a configuration tool - you really just start XSane. (Now, to get the printing working for the All-in-One I had to manually choose to add the printer. But scanning worked with zero configuration.)
  • jub0r, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17Linux, or more correctly, X11 aka XFree86 aka Xorg has had multiple monitor support since before I started playing with Linux in 1998. It was called Xinerama. Recently, Nvidia's drivers have made their own multi-monitor extension for X and gave it a nice configuration interface. I'm not sure how ATI does multi-monitor.

    The article is just saying that Ubuntu wants to get a built-in standard config dialog for your multi-monitor setup. Trying to amalgamate all this disparate software into a user-friendly system that actually performs a function other than "running Linux" is a noble challenge that I don't envy Ubuntu for accepting.
  • Sendss, on 10/11/2007, -14/+6It says Ubuntu! Dugg.
  • haider254, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10Ubuntu had dual monitor before, it just wasn't very good.


    Hopefully this is decent enough for me to run my CRT/projector off of. It's the only thing holding me back from going over to ubuntu...
  • jdhore1, on 10/11/2007, -18/+3Yay? All this does is give you a nice GUI for enabling it, not for controlling it (not like UltraMon on Windows). It's not a new dual-monitor "standard", you can already do dual-monitor quite easily via editing your xorg.conf and you can already find a tool to do this on the interwebs...This is just another "Look at us! We've made Ubuntu even easier for idiots!" article.
    • rulus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11That's not true, the new Xorg 7.3 will make things a lot easier to set up. It should be as simple as plugging your monitor in and go.
    • thomas, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17@jdhore1 (#7200483)

      "Look at us! We've made Ubuntu even easier for idiots!"
      No, its we made Linux easier for normal people who don't want to edit config files or download utilities that should come with the operation system. If you want Linux to succeed on the desktop it has to be easy enough for anyone to use not just cli geeks.

    • crazybrit, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5Idiots? How about the everyday user?
    • carl0ski, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5UltraMon has nothing on KDE's intergrated xinerama support in Kubuntu for example


      Ubuntu only has poor Multimonitor support thanks to gnomes lack of full xinerama support


      Mandriva and OpenSuse have their own management tools to enable/disable multimontior on Gnome

      but vanilla gnome has nothing really
    • regeya, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1'This is just another "Look at us! We've made Ubuntu even easier for idiots!" article.'

      If Ubuntu is for idiots, what's that say about Windows and OS X?
  • szurgot, on 10/11/2007, -7/+0Finally I think having dual monitor support is great I hope it catches on in other distros .I was never able to get good support for 2 at least for my ATI card and I'm not buying a new card just to keep dual support which works fine in windows. Also I"m not the biggest fan of Ubuntu I like Linux for the customization options it offers and Ubuntu is a little to dumbed down for me at times and to full of hype I'm waiting for Slackware to pick this up.
    • joebaloney, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Strange how they "dumbed it down" while reducing the size of the distribution to a single disk. And the operating system is too full of hype?
      Okay... I'll put you down as the kind of person who says they like jazz and classical music, but complains whenever anyone attempts to actually play any.
      I mean I realize that a portion of Linux, and until recently Mac users choose their OS's because they think it makes them 31337, and over-popularity is always a style cramper, but most people take more care to mask their true motivations to avoid looking like total poseurs.

      Ubuntu is an excellent Linux distribution, its small and works as well out of the "box" as any Linux out there. If its too popular to be cool, then so be it.
  • mattryan50, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Yeah I JUST finished setting up multiple monitors on Ubuntu and it was pretty simple with Nvidia. It would be nice though to have more features similar to what Ultramon in Windows provides.
  • crazybrit, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I tried the new UI with the Gutsy Alpha and my Radeon 9600, and it didn't work. Hopefully it will improve for the final release... if not, I guess that's what I get for buying ATi. :(
    • generalloy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I'd guess it's a matter of Radeon drivers (depending on whether you're using radeon or fglrx) not using xrandr 1.3 yet. That should be coming soon.
  • mattfugitive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I'm highly interested in how users will be able to interact with the new Dualview UI, and it's a great move by Ubuntu where dual users tend to sway away from Ubuntu cause they don't havethe scripting skills to make Ubuntu work with Dual display.
  • generalloy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Don't some people have three monitors these days? (a la Al Gore)
    http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2007/gore_life/20.jpg

    I do believe this is a great improvement coming with Xorg 7.3. I believe Fedora 7 (released after Feisty) has a similar tool called "Display" under System->Administration, too, and comes with xserver1.3.
  • calvmari, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Argh and I was hoping for 3 monitor support :(
    • minorthreat, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2you've had three monitor support for years.. www.google.com learn to use it
  • ciproxr, on 10/11/2007, -11/+1this is awesome and all but i wish they would consitrate on making the features it already has work better. Stand by and hibernate are very sloppy and slower than XP. Also driver support is still pretty bad, ubuntu dosent work with ATI and inter wireless cards. AC97 sound cards are suppose to be fully supported yet mine sounds like crap.

    No more new features , just make ubuntu work
    • ciproxr, on 10/11/2007, -9/+3so what do you suggest people with the problems that i have do ? buy new hardware when everything works under xp ?
    • pauldonnelly, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9How about buying supported hardware in the first place if you're interested in running Linux? You can't blame anyone else for your lack of foresight. I'm not saying you should have known... but whining that someone should make it work because you didn't get your ***** together *before* blowing your cash is silly.
    • estvir, on 10/11/2007, -7/+2pauldonnelly, you just insulted how hundreds of millions of average people ?
    • ciproxr, on 10/11/2007, -9/+1I bought my computer two years ago, ubuntu was barely an option at the time, how was i suppose to know ubuntu would turn out the way it is ? scratch my balls ,smell my fingers and just know ? How was I suppose to know linux has problems with ATI ?everyone is suppose to be an expert ?

      Telling people they need new hardware or they should of bought supported hardware is stupid and wont help ubuntu gain a higher user base.
    • TritonX, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I understand your point, but there ain't much anyone can do. If hardware manufacturer won't give specs, it's easy to blame Linux. It can be frustrating to realizes your hardware is not supported under Linux, but you need to put the blame where it belong, to the hardware manufacturers.
    • srg13, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8"AC97 sound cards are suppose to be fully supported yet mine sounds like crap."

      This sounds like a problem with your hardware, or maybe you've set something up wrong - mine worked excellently straight out of the box
    • sworoc, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3@ciproxr:

      "Telling people they need new hardware or they should of bought supported hardware is stupid and wont help VISTA gain a higher user base."
  • ecorona, on 10/11/2007, -6/+3I love Ubuntu. I think the OS itself is more than ready. Although some people think wireless compatibility problems are a thing of the past, I was unable to get my wireless card working even with nDisWrapper. Not to mention that only after I installed it onto my laptop I downloaded xmame only to find out that their implementation of mame (XMAME) is so pathetically ***** compared to the original win32 version of MAME. Errors up the wazoo when I tried starting it. Finally got it to run but not in fullscreen :-(.

    Like I said, Ubuntu the OS is ready but it still needs willing programmers to elevate the OS by supporting it.
    • sqrt7744, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I use gxmame frontend to xmame.SDL. Works like a charm, fullscreen and everything. I don't miss anything from the win32 version I used to use... What front end are you using (in my experience gxmame is better than kxmame in ubuntu)?

      Also re your wireless woes, I suspect you have a broadcom card. Install the package bcm43xx-fwcutter, this will grab the appropriate firmware for you.
    • 1karmik1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0You might want to try rbelmont.mameworld.info [sdlmame]. It's up to date (unlike xmame) and kinda faster (i THINK).
  • mphree, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4The only thing I can possibly say to this: ***** Finally.
  • tuxracer, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2How about they get *one* monitor wide-screen support working properly? Hell, even the Ubuntu laptops from Dell SHIP with stretched out 1028x768 stretched out mess on a widescreen monitor designed for 1440x900 with no option to use the screen's native resolution. Yes, they ship from Dell that way. They don't even have proper one-screen monitor support and they're spending their time on dual-screen UI? Talk about putting the cart before the carriage...
  • Nudicles, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2Here's my own personal "eat my ass" picture for all you windows lovers:

    http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa160/nudicles7/snapshot14.png

    2x 22" 1680x1050 glory.
    mmmm... tastes like jealousy.
  • axentrix, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4There has never been hard setting up multiple screen on ubuntu, or any other distro with xinerama, it just hasn't been userfriendly at all. I have set up a 5x15" 800x600 screen setup (way back), no problem, but what average joe cares about editing xorg.conf?
  • ambushxx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Right now its too easy to get pirated software..and its easy to compare compare these commercial softwares to their open-source alternatives and say Ubuntu sucks

    Try paying for all the softwares you use
    For someone in a lesser devoloped country paying for even a windows is big deal let alone paying for photoshop or anivirus softwares
    • TritonX, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Paying for Anti-virus. That's a market that only exists in windows, I'm jealous.
    • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1There are several opensource apps, that are better then commercial equivalents. For example synergy, is by far the best KM switch, stardock has a similar product, but its windows only, synergy is great for some one like me who has several linux desktops, windows desktop and apple laptop. While gimp is not as powerful as Photoshop its amazing for being a free application, compared to other similar commercial alternatives. firefox vs other browsers, thunderbird vs other email clients, open office is amazing for a free office suite (still behind ms office) but is great for most ordinary users, then there is amarok, the only besides foobar that handles my music collection properly, I still think k3b is a hell of alot better then that bloatware, nero, media portal is better then the windows MS media center, I prefer aMSN over the MSN Messenger Client (thats more opinion), lame is an opensource mp3 encoder. There are tons of opensource applications that exceed commercial offerings.
  • simplyjat, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3Whats so new and why are you so enthusiastic about it....
    Redhat / Suse / Fedora had these applets long long back, probably 4-5 years back
  • marcushe, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4FINALLY!

    Will it have better screen recognition so I don't have to edit the xorg.conf file everytime I install the damn thing?
  • chickenrob, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Dosen't ubunu have sax2? That is the GUI I used to set up dual monitor in opensuse 10.2. worked great with an nvidia card. Beryl also has great dual monitor support, but I did have to run a few terminal commands for that i guess. I don't see what is so hard about opening a terminal window and following some directions anyways. It may not be intuitive, but in todays world you can just gooogle your trouble and you will usually find a step by step tutorial somewhereAlso, aren't ubuntu user used to the command line from using apt-get? .
  • coolbru, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I've taken seamless non-rectangular arrangements of multiple (most I've run is 6) monitors in varying depths, resolutions and scan rates, driven by graphics cards from different manufacturers, for granted since about 1988, but apparently this is news.
  • kierskoe, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0If you don't have the ability to get 2 monitors active in Ubuntu by following the step by step tutorials and editing xorg.conf, then you are not in the least bit a moderately good PC administrator.... whether the machine is Windows or Linux. It is a simple task which takes a tiny bit of logical thinking, the ability to use google and intelligently follow instructions. It may be new to you but it is certainly not difficult to understand with the tutorials..... i would assume if you cant get it working then your PC skills would amount to clicking away on the Internet and double clicking to install applications.


    The UI is a great idea though.
    • 1karmik1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0As previously stated, this tool is mostly meant for UNSAVVY laptop owners. Not everyone with a computer in their bag have to be a "good PC administrator". Ubuntu target audience is pretty much clear, unsavvy people. And it's good exactly for that reason. We can't expect everyone with a car to be a test driver.
  • cope, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5nvidia-settings
    aticonfig


    anyone heard of these? If not try running them!
  • melonhedd, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Has X.Org fixed the issue of using multiple monitors with different resolutions yet?
    • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1last time I checked but you can use panning to kinda work around it. But I agree thats one thing X.org needs to fix, not that its a big issue for me but it would help out some of us who use multiple monitor setups.
  • mouseboi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2It's nice to see some better support for dual monitors. X11 is a little complicated to setup dual monitors the first time but a quick search reveals some straightforward guides. I only added some additional lines to my xorg.conf and everything is running smoothly. You can get "panels" on both monitors which can be configured to ones liking and window tabs show up on the correct screen so the support is definitely there.
    • weizbox, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"You can get "panels" on both monitors which can be configured to ones liking and window tabs show up on the correct screen so the support is definitely there."

      Oh yea? thats pretty sweet, I def didn't even know about that. Any chance you or anyone else know how to do the same thing with XFCE? =)
  • weizbox, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Seems like a pretty sweet idea, but I'd like to find out more first about how it works. Does it just change your xorg.conf file in order to do this? or does i actually change the way Gnome operates so that it doesn't mix in apps from different screens into one taskbar? As well... I wonder if it would use twinview if an nVidia card was detected. Either way... it sounds pretty sweet since I know a good bit of people that already use dual screens (myself included). I'm just wondering why this is a Ubuntu-only thing instead of for Gnome development... it seems like it would be a good feature for Gnome to have... not for just Ubuntu to have.
  • hughesj919, on 10/11/2007, -4/+4uhh...how is this news?...its already like a two-line fix in your xorg.conf file...why is the UI even necessary? ...Ubuntu please dont go the way of the Microsoft and attempt to idiot-proof your OS.
  • mapez, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5I really don't see why this is on the front page.. It is VERY easy to enable twinview and xinerama..
  • ispep, on 10/11/2007, -7/+1***** ubuntu and all its fanboys.
    • Sparkster185, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Have you even tried using it? It's quite neat.
  • zdiggler, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I hope its be easy and have features like Nvidia nview. Last time I tries to use TV out took me all day of reading forums and faqs then somehow x broke and learn how to restore it etc.

    I got it to work but I didn't havn't install it on my new machine yet.
  • mykool, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Good news, this is my main issue with switching from windows. Just make the S-vid on my ATI cards work and I will switch.
    • xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1thats ATI *****-tacular drivers. ATI has several options, make better drivers, open source their drivers if they dont want to support linux, or at least provide specs or helpful information to the opensource ATI driver project.

      Or you can take out that ATI card and drop an Nvidia card and you can have tv out.
  • minorthreat, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1noobs... linux has had the capability to use dual monitors for years...

  • amfantasy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2not to be a troll, but Suse had this for a long time. I had a agp card and a old pci video card and Suse 10 configured it for me during install...or you can open yast which will provide you with a gui to set all this up
  • Rahn, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I have Ubuntu/dual view working on my laptop (17in wide screen) with an external 20in wide screen lcd. It was not difficult to setup but it was not for beginners thats for sure. =) This will be a nice improvement.
    For those who haven't tried it i HIGHLY recommend 2 monitors =) My work setup is a 20in wide screen along with a 17in 4:3. My wife uses a 22in wide screen along with a 19in wide screen.
  • rocket2dmn, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Thank you Ubuntu! I spent so long trying to get my dual monitor to work, only to find that my video card is no longer supported for it. Maybe this will help to fix it.
  • mikedoth, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I've been needing a tool like this for a while now, god I hope they finish it soon.
  • kiranlightpaw, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Nice!

    And for those of us with 3+ monitor setups?

    Beryl support across 3+ monitors would be nice, too.
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