This is assuming you have set up the restricted nvidia driver in Ubuntu, your LCD monitor is working, and you want to add a TV for playing movies. Open a terminal and type these three commands seperately. The first backs up your xorg.conf

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

The next one creates a working xorg.conf for us to use.

sudo nvidia-xconfig

And this one opens the nvidia settings tool with sudo so we can save our changes.

sudo nvidia-settings

Under X Server Display Configuration “Detect Displays”, “Configure…” and configure the monitors as “Separate X Screens”, set the resolutions right, and Save to X Configuration File. Here is how I set mine up.

Then open a terminal and type

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

In my case my tv is CRT-0 with a resolution of 1360×768. My LCD is CRT-1 with a resolution of 1680×1050. Find the line than says

Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: 1360x768 +0+0"

and change it to

Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: 1680x1050@1360x768 +0+0"

This will squeeze the 1680 screen into a 1360 container (as far as I understand). Before finding this, I was missing the right side and bottom of the screen.

Restart X and you should have your regular LCD setup, and another X screen for your TV.

If you run into trouble editing xorg.conf, you still have a backup. Boot to a console and type

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak /etc/X11/xorg.conf

CONFIGURING VLC

Then in VLC, go to Tools > Preferences > Show Settings – All > Video, check Fullscreen Video and uncheck Embedded Video. This separates the controls from the fullscreen output so you can control it with your computer (my TV is in another room).

Then go to Output Modules, and select an output type (in my case XVideo) and then set it up to match your configuration. Here is mine.

You can find these values in nvidia settings to some degree, and the rest is just finding a match. I found I had to restart VLC after each change to take effect.

I had a lot of trouble with this before and was cloning the monitor output, then switching my resolution to 1360×768 each time. I find this to be a much better solution, but I can’t promise anything, it’s just the way it worked for me. Good luck!

Here is some links that I bookmarked along the way. Thanks to everyone that helped!

http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/6386
http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/2986
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/dual-monitors-with-nvidia.html
http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=31726
http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54263
http://navetz.com/view.php?id=132
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221174

alignment top_right
gap_x 30
use_xft yes
xftfont verdana:size=8
xftalpha 0.8
own_window yes
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
use_spacer none
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
 
TEXT
${color #5c4b42}${font StyleBats:size=8}A${font}  ${color #988378}CPU0: ${cpu cpu0}% ${color #5c4b42}${cpubar cpu0}
${color #5c4b42}${font StyleBats:size=8}A${font}  ${color #988378}CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${color #5c4b42}${cpubar cpu1}
${color #5c4b42}${font weather:size=8}x ${font}CPU0: ${color #988378}${execi 5 /usr/bin/sensors | grep Core0 }
${color #5c4b42}${font weather:size=8}x ${font}CPU1: ${color #988378}${execi 5 /usr/bin/sensors | grep Core1 }
${color #5c4b42}${font weather:size=8}x ${font}GPU: ${color #988378}${execpi 5 nvidia-settings -q GPUCoreTemp -t}°C ${color #5c4b42}${font weather:size=8}x ${font}ACPI Temp: ${color #988378}${acpitemp}°C
 
${color #5c4b42}/              ${color #988378}${alignr}${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} ${color #5c4b42}${fs_bar 5,120 /}
${color #5c4b42}/media/My Book ${color #988378}${alignr}${fs_used /media/My Book} / ${fs_size /media/My Book} ${color #5c4b42}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/My Book}
${color #5c4b42}/media/My Book 2 ${color #988378}${alignr}${fs_used /media/My Book 2} / ${fs_size /media/My Book 2} ${color #5c4b42}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/My Book 2}
 
${color #5c4b42}RAM Usage:${color #988378} $mem${color #5c4b42} / ${color #988378}$memmax - $memperc% ${color #5c4b42} $membar
${color #5c4b42}Swap Usage:${color #988378} $swap${color #5c4b42} / ${color #988378}$swapmax - $swapperc% ${color #5c4b42} ${swapbar}
 
${color #5c4b42}Name              PID     CPU%   MEM%
${color #988378} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color #988378} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color #988378} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${color #5c4b42}Mem usage
${color #988378} ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem pid 1} ${top_mem cpu 1} ${top_mem mem 1}
${color #988378} ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem pid 2} ${top_mem cpu 2} ${top_mem mem 2}
${color #988378} ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem pid 3} ${top_mem cpu 3} ${top_mem mem 3}
 
${color #5c4b42}${font PizzaDude Bullets:size=8}v${font} Up Speed: ${color #988378}${upspeed eth1} Kb/s ${color #5c4b42}${alignr}Uploaded: ${color #988378}${totalup eth1}
${color #5c4b42}${font PizzaDude Bullets:size=8}r${font} Down Speed: ${color #988378}${downspeed eth1} Kb/s ${color #5c4b42}${alignr}Downloaded: ${color #988378}${totaldown eth1}
 
${color #5c4b42}${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 count} Outbound Connections ${alignr} Remote Ports${color #988378}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 0} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 0}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 1} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 1}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 2} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 2}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 3} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 3}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 4} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 4}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 5} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 5}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 6} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 6}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 7} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 7}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 8} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 8}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 9} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 9}
 ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rhost 10} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 rservice 10}
${color #5c4b42}${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count} Inbound Connections ${alignr} Local Ports${color #988378}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 0} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lservice 0}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 1} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lservice 1}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 2} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lservice 2}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 3} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lservice 3}
 ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 rhost 4} ${alignr} ${tcp_portmon 1 32767 lservice 4}

And here’s a few screeners to show what it looks like.

Boy did that ever mess up my plans to get some things done around the house this weekend. This is the kind of program I love. I write a lot of CSS, which is Edit and View. It’s simple, there is no compile errors, and other than some ignorant FTP servers, it’s instant fun. So when I found that the program conky comes with a single configuration file (~/.conkyrc), naturally I am stoked. Edit, Kill, Run, View. It still works for me. Sure you can make it more complicated, but you can also break it down easy. I spent most of Saturday learning the variables you can work with, and now am getting back into shell scripting cause there is some amazing things you can do with conky plus a shell script!

I finally started with the remove everything strategy, and soon as one of the Ram chips was removed, everything was fine. Did a memtest86 on each of them, and sure enough one passed fine, and one failed miserably.

Return! This Ram is going back soon as I can make it to Langley. Had another 1Gb stick so dropped that in there until I get it replaced. Everything else worked great.

For anyone who is looking for answers, I found that these kernel panic errors can be due to just about anything (I know, I didn’t like hearing that either). From my searching, It went from Software bugs (So try different OS disks if possible), a short on the motherboard, bad IDE controllers, mismatched IDE devices (hard drive and cdrom on same cable), Bad Ram slots (try just one chip at a time in one slot then the next), Incorrect Bios settings, and power supply (or lack of) problems.

Take out everything and start one device at a time. Keep searching! You’ll find it :)

After installation, I

• Downloaded the package updates
• Enabled the restricted NVidia drivers
• Installed Wine 1.1.9
  
• Installed K9copy and K3B through Synaptic.
• Installed the Flash plugin by

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

• Changed the font sizes to 9 (System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts)
• Also changed Rendering to Subpixel Smoothing (Same panel)
• Visited Radiotime’s KISM 92.9 webpage and it (wizard style) automatically installs the three Gstreamer codecs (nice!)

and that’s it so far.

Links:

Ticalc.org

Backlighting

Here’s the specs on my latest system. <3

AMD X2 4600 EE / Biostar Tforce 570 / 2GB Corsair DDR2-667 / EVGA 8800GTS 640Mb / Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA2 / OCZ GameXStream 700W / Antec Nine Hundred / Gateway FPW 2185 Monitor / Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 64

I play Everquest, Guild Wars, Star Wars Galaxies, Oblivion, Morrowind, World of Warcraft, Diablo II, Doom 3, Starcraft, and I just managed to get Vanguard: Saga of Heroes working in the newest Wine. I’m stoked to have my games and a real operating system.

For my server I use OpenBSD. Right now it is running 4.0 with a basic fvwm config. I like the default install of X on OpenBSD. I know, not many will agree :P. I usually change the background and I am good to go, hehe. I do a little messing around with .xinitrc and .xsession but not much, I like to keep it simple :)

These are both Kvm’ed to a 22 inch widescreen Gateway monitor. Here’s the link I found for getting it working in OpenBSD (or any BSD for that matter).

Getting Fullscreen monitors setup in Xorg