Ati Radeon VE 7000 and X.org

By: Eric Schultz

Purpose

The purpose this tutorial is to Successfully set up a dual headed (two monitor) configuration with an Ati Radeon VE 7000 running under X.org. (I use fedora core 3... so that's what I'm using.)

Back Story

Why am I writing this?
Simple, I use linux on my main workstation. (Sorry, my laptop uses windows... my hands are tied on that one.) My main workstation is a pretty nice machine. We started with a base Dell System and added a bunch. Unfortunatly, the Dell system came with the troublesome Ati Radeon VE 7000 video card. Yes, it works real nice under windows, but who wants to do that? As all of my work is with linux, that is what I run on my main workstation. So, I requested two flat panels and got them, two Sceptre 19" panels. I've had alot of trouble wiring them up and getting everything working so I wrote this little tutorial. It was expecially difficult to get Xv(X video extensions) to work. For those that don't know, Xv is vrey important for xine (unless you like 100% cpu usage.) Hopefully google will crawl it and it will help other lost souls. The configurations were cobbled together from quite a few online guides and notes. So Lets wire up those panels and get going.

Setting it all up

Step 1 - Research

First of all you have to find out what horizontal and vertical scan rates your monitors can handle. I know that this seems odd, but in general I've found that it does pay to look it up. You can then actually set your screens up with the resolutions you want. Don't guess, you can damage your screens.

Step 2 - Copy config file

Download : xorg.conf
and save it in /etc/X11. Overwrite the file that's there.

Step 3 - Edit config file

open up the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
Your going to edit the two "Monitor" Sections
Edit DisplaySize. Change it to your monitor's size in millimeters (width height)
Edit HorizSync. This is the horizontal scan rate range in kHz that you found in step 1
Edit VertRefresh. This is the vertical scan rate range in Hz that you found in step 1