I love it when the answer to a question actually tells you more information so you can truly grok the underlying problem.

Also, nerds of the internet: when someone asks how to do something, please refrain from saying, “you should actually do it this other way” unless you also say why the proposed way is wrong. If I need information on sftp, don’t tell me that I should use scp unless you also explain why I shouldn’t use sftp in the first place. I may have my reasons for using this other thing, just answer the question if you can, otherwise shut up.

One important note: if Kino playback is very choppy, you may need to specify /dev/dsp in the audio device section.

I have a crappy, 10 year old sound card in this box — it’s not well supported in ANY operating system other than Win98 first edition, but it gets the job done (Turtle Beach Montego II).

Anyway, here’s our cat, Rat, reacting to Chocolate Rain

I’m posting this because I had a hell of a time finding all the info on it.

Update: This is the significant portion of my xorg.conf.
Update, a few years later: The most important thing I’ve learned about dealing with the radeon

Resources:
Radeon driver xorg settings
XGL Troubleshooting
Compiz wiki ATI notes

My desired setup: two CRTs side by side, each running at 1280×1024, giving me an effective desktop of 2560×1024.

For desktop effects to work, I had to run the ‘radeon’ driver, not the ‘ati’ nor ‘fglrx’ drivers. If one uses fglrx, I guess one can get by running XGL instead of AIGLX, but that locked up my X.

First important note: If fglrx was ever installed and you want to use ati or radeon, you need to fully remove fglrx (sudo apt-get remove –purge fglrx).

Second important note: To get a desktop spanning across two monitors, you want to use the MergedFB option in your xorg.conf. This provides Xinerama-like functionality. There are several options with that mode to provide different resolutions on each monitor with spanning.

Third important note: There is an apparent hardware limitation for these cards on texture sizes. The max texture size for 3D applications (including compiz) of 2048×2048). This means that if you have a desktop wider than 2048, you’ll either

1. have effects for half or 2/3 of the desktop/screen with white on the far right, or
2. a fully white screen with odd tearing on effects

There’s not much way around this at this point. Some people can fix it messing with ‘driconf’.
My solution at this point is to have one screen ‘Above’ instead of ‘RightOf’ in my xorg.conf (the two heights combine to 2048, so they fit into memory).

Anyway, that’s about it. I’ll add my xorg.conf to this post, later. I can’t cause I’m on the laptop right now.


# xorg.conf significant sections for dual head + compiz on radeon 9600 XT
# second screen on top of second screen, vertical orientation.

Section "Module"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Radeon"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "No2048Limit"
Option "MergedFB" "true"
Option "MergedXineramaCRT2IsScreen0" "true"
Option "CRT2Position" "Above"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024-1280x1024 1024x768-1024x768"

Option "DDCMode" "true"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "Off"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "GLOverlay" "false"
Option "OverlayOnCRTC1" "on"
Option "OverlayOnCRTC2" "on"
Option "MergedDPI" "75 75"
Option "AGPMode" "8"
Option "DRI" "true"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
#DO NOT USE WITH RADEON 9600 Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Dell P991 [0]"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-107
VertRefresh 48-85
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Radeon"
Monitor "Dell P991 [0]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1280 2048
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Screen0"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
Option "AIGLX" "true"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "On"
EndSection


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One of the things I love about Gnome is how it doesn’t overwhelm you with options and settings for things. But one of the things I hate about it is how it doesn’t overwhelm you with options and settings for things.

Maybe it’s just the default install for Ubuntu, but there are all sorts of features that are available and tweakable, but hidden because there isn’t something as simple as “Advanced.” Example: I have several screensavers that allow various options to be set, but the screensaver interface doesn’t allow one to even see those options — one has to install and use xscreensaver to see them.

Also, and the point of this post, there is extensive theming of the desktop and user interface. However, there isn’t granularity. It’s easy as anything to change the theme, and even mix and match, say, icons from Theme B with window controls from Theme A.

But if you want to change individual color elements, such as the active title bar or the scrollbar color, you’re screwed. Thankfully, I found the application gnome-color-chooser (Gnome-look download, link to v 0.2.2 src of gnome-color-chooser).

I don’t know that it’s an official part of the Gnome experience (I think it was written by someone as frustrated as I), but so far it hasn’t broken anything for me.

So there you go.