X11 dualmonitors not working (different monitors)

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1

Hi!

I am struggling to configure my two monitors on X11.
I am using a Nvidia graphics card.

My plan is to use GDM to start i3. I enabled GDM and then configured i3 using home-manager. This way I can’t choose between Gnome and i3 in GDM but this is fine for me.

The problem is that I can’t figure out how to configure my two monitors using xrandr.

For debugging I logged in as another user and choose “Gnome using Xorg” in GDM. This way I could use Gnome’s system settings to configure the monitors.

Here is a screenshot. This is what I see on the bigger monitor (2) which is on the right of the smaller monitor (1). I am seeing the picture that should be displayed on the separate monitors on one monitor: The picture of monitor 1 is also displayed on monitor 2. The picture that should be displayed on monitor 2 is only partially visible (completely visible in the screenshot, not sure why)

Bildschirmfoto vom 2020-05-21 15-16-54
Bildschirmfoto vom 2020-05-21 15-16-544240×1440 187 KB

Also mouse input doesn’t work correctly. The mouse coordinates are kind of shifted.

I don’t have this problem when I just switch the monitors: Move the smaller monitor to the right of the bigger one.

I am at my wits end and hope someone has a clue what is going on here.

Thanks!

1 Like
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If I understand correctly, your screens are overlapping. If the GNOME configuration doesn’t tell you the truth, you can try arandr tool. But I doubt if it’ll differ.
If I remember correctly, Nvidia had a configuration tool which you can adjust monitors (coming with the driver, called nvidia-setting), you might want to try that one instead of Xorg tools if they’re confused. Sometimes an output might be claimed/shared by a specific display adapter.

2 Likes
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I hadn’t even thought of installing the proprietary drivers. After enabling it switching monitors immediately worked.

Thanks a lot!

4

I like that one as well!

Good that you got it to work, though having to install the proprietary drivers is a bit disappointing of course :slight_smile: . Dual monitors work just fine for me with only free drivers. If you go back to the open drivers, does the problem reappear as well? Could you share the output of xrandr here?