[ale] budget dual-head advice?

Jeremy jeremy at remad.net
Wed Aug 31 11:06:28 EDT 2011


I'm new here but I'm just going to jump right in...

2011/8/31 Björn Gustafsson <bg-ale at bjorng.net>:
> My single-display system at home makes me sad when I have to work from my
> house, so I'm looking to create a dual-display setup on my Ubuntu box.
> Switching between virtual displays just isn't good enough for me.  I'm just
> looking for more screen real estate, not gaming or other high frame-rate
> applications, so performance isn't a big issue as long as I get the maximum
> resolution for my buck.
>
> I've been pricing monitors that can handle 1920x1080, but haven't done the
> math yet to see how much video memory that requires.
>

If resolution matters don't buy a TV for your Monitor, 1080i is for
watching TV.  Sorry I feel strongly about this :)

> Pricewatch pointed me at two budget-minded dual-head DVI cards, and I was
> wondering if anyone had pointers on which might be preferable.  At work I
> have an ATI Radeon dual-head setup on Ubuntu so I'm confident that works.
> I've been reading that nVidia-based dual display configurations are more of
> a hassle to set up, so that may drive me in the other direction.
>

I haven't done dual-head on ATI in years so I don't know.  I do know
that dual head on nVidia in Ubuntu/Xubuntu is trivial.  They have a
config app which is awesome.  Avoid Intel, the display looks fine but
the config is a pain.

I've done dual-head on an older AGP nVidia card with only 256MB RAM on
board.  It was going to a 24" (1920X1200) and a 19" (1280x1024).
Never had a problem.  I would run VMs, browser, full screen video on
the small display and never had a problem.


Jeremy



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