Dual Head OpenSUSE 11 on the HP dx5150

One of my favourite workhorse platforms is the Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq dx5150 desktop with the AMD Athlon64 processor and ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset. I’ve used this model for many years with a variety of operating systems. I recently installed Novell’s OpenSUSE 11 to one of my dx5150 units to which I have attached two identical Samsung SyncMaster 204B monitors. Getting OpenSUSE to support both monitors at once was a bit problematic and finding the necessary resources was a bit of a problem so I decided to share the solution here to make it easier for other hapless souls to stumble across.

What appears to happen to most people is that they either use the Yast and Sax combination of tools to no effect and become discouraged. Many attempt to load the ATI fglrx drivers and find that after doing so they are unable to get anything but a blank screen. This was my experience as well.

The final solution was actually very simple and painless and was actually described on this site hosted by Novell specifically for OpenSUSE: Multiple Screens Using XRandR.  What is difficult is discovering if this set of information is the correct set for the dx5150.  It is.

The solution was quite easy. First, give up on the fglrx driver. User the radeonxrandr12 driver instead. The added Virtual settings to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file that include the size of both (or all) of your monitors combined. In my case with two 1600×1200 LCDs that was 3200 1200. So the following line had to be added to each “Display” subsection:

Virtual 3200 1200

And change the “Driver” line to:

Driver “radeonrandr12”

Then restart the X server – easiest thing to do is to log out and back in again.  Once you are back in you can open up the command line and start playing with the simple xrandr command to change your monitor configuration.

You can learn more about the xrandr options with the –help option.  The correct command for me to have my two monitors appear side by side with one large desktop is:

xrandr –auto –output VGA-0 –mode 1600×1200 –right-of DVI-0

With OpenSUSE 11 installed on the dx5150, the two monitor adapters available to you natively off of the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 integrated chipset are VGA-0 and DVI-0.  This makes them very simple to work with.

Novell maintains another document about working with the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset and OpenSUSE 11 but I found, as did many other people, that this documentation did not work for this particular set of hardware.

July 22, 2008: Oreo’s Grandpa

Dice Brick Smash is out. Post your high scores in the comments!

Apple has added another feature to the AppleTV: Remote. Remote is a free application that owners of an iPhone or an iPod Touch can download and use to control their AppleTV or iTunes on their computer from anywhere on their network. This sounds a bit silly at first until you realize that you can use your AppleTV to power an all-house audio system and you can control everything that it does from anywhere. It is actually pretty cool. Not a feature that many people would consider paying for but as a free feature it is pretty neat.

Depressingly, Los Angeles is a gorgeous seventy-two degrees today while here in Newark it is ninety-two. Hot, humid, hazy and ugh.

InfoWorld ran an article about the lack of customer support people are getting from Dell and how, now, Dell is flatly refusing to support their products if sold through Best Buy! Customers think that they are buying a Dell and are even being told by Best Buy salespeople that there is a Dell warranty that Dell will service but Dell’s policy is that they just don’t honor those warranties – at all, period. Now we’ve discovered that they have this policy with machine purchased via Best Buy (what are you doing buying a computer there anyway?) but if they can choose when to refuse warranty service then what makes them service machines purchased anywhere? Apparently Dell’s warranty service is seen by them as optional. Maybe they will soon see actually delivering the computer that you bought as optional as well.

Mary called today. I have her new mobile phone number now if anyone is attempting to reach her. She is in Dansville these days rather than Warsaw.

My walk into the office in Manhattan was not nearly as hot as I thought that it was going to be. It is certainly hot and humid here today but it could be a lot worse. Because there is some possibility of rain there is a decent wind that helps to keep things from getting too warm. That is something that really gets to me in Manhattan is the complete lack of air movement. I am especially susceptible to a lack of air movement in keeping cool. Air temperature is not nearly as important to me as humidity and air exchange rate.

Thomas Alan Miller in Liberty Square, 1991

I forgot to mention yesterday that both Dominica and I had coworkers who had children born yesterday! Both were people directly on our teams.

Dad had a dentist appointment up in Rochester today and discovered that he has become quite a celebrity. Apparently the story of the little Boston Terrier, rescued from a shelter in Houston, Texas who went through being poisoned and then getting onto the Manhattan news and into a Boston newspaper, who recovered and now lives in a skyscraper with views of Manhattan, spends his days at doggy daycare and rides around wearing goggles in his BMW convertible is quite the story. They tell it to all of the dog lovers and children. So dad is now known as “Oreo’s Grandpa” and all of the patients at the dentist’s office know him (by reputation at least.) He walked in today and they called out “Oreo’s grandpa is here!”

I managed to escape the office at just about six in the evening which isn’t really too bad.  Dominica met me at Food for Life where we ate dinner.  It made the evening quick that we were able to eat so early and without any prolonged decision making or waiting as food was delivered.  We were home before eight.

Dominica spent the evening watching the last half of Stardust which she had rented from NetFlix but had not gotten around to finishing yet.  I recorded the 60th Episode of the SGL Podcast but was so tired and worn out that I was unable to get it posted until the morning.  By nine thirty when I finished the show I went straight to bed.  Dominica was not tired and stayed up for a long time reading.

Dominica is still fighting a really bad cold and we fear that it is now a sinus infection.  Oreo got me up in the middle of the night, around two in the morning, to patrol the perimeter and then to go back to bed.  He can be a very goofy dog.  I will be working in Warren tomorrow so I will be hard to reach.  I plan to return home early so that Dominica can pick me up at the train station on her way home.

The rain that we have been promised all week but have not seen finally came during the night.  Maybe that will cool things down a little bit although the forecast doesn’t seem to think that it will.

SGL Podcast Episode 60: Disney Trip 2008


Download the SGL Podcast Episode 60 in MP3 format.

In this episode, Scott talks about Scott and Dominica’s four day trip to Walt Disney World in Florida where they stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. Follow along as he tells about their trip. Highlights include eating at Artist’s Point, the Hollywood Brown Derby, San Angel Inn and Roarin’ Forks Canyon; Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor and Toy Story Mania. Their trip was from May 31st – June 3rd, 2008.

For this episode we are also trying out for the first time the OurMedia based Flash player built right in to the site so that you can listen to the show without downloading it.  So far we are pretty happy with it.  Let us know if you have any problems.  RSS enclosures are, of course, still available as are all of the media links.

Music provided by the Podsafe Music Network.

The Night Tales Of A Fairy by Fumitaka Anzai

Misc:

Internet Archive Media Page for SGL Episode 60.

OurMedia Page for SGL Episode 60.

July 21, 2008: Blah, blah, blah

“…the average millionaire can’t tell you who got thrown off the island, but they can tell you exactly what they have in their 401(k).” – Dave Ramsey

It is very, very hot here in Newark, New Jersey again today.  Hot, muggy and sunny.  There was supposed to be rain to give us a little reprieve but we are not so lucky.

I slept in a bit this morning and didn’t log in to the office until eight thirty.  It was a disaster in process by the time that I did log in.  What a mess.  We had a lot of work done over the weekend which, of course, is expected to have some issues come Monday morning but we also had a key authentication migration which can cause far deeper levels of disruption.  So that was my morning.

It is so hot that the air conditioning is having a hard time keeping up with the sunlight and overall heat.  The apartment is seventy-seven degrees with the air conditioning running pretty much all of the time.  I closed the blinds some to ease the load on the A/C unit but I can only close them so much or the plants are not exactly happy.

My whole day was pretty busy.  The bulk of my afternoon was spent on a very long conference call.  I really need to make getting a nice telephone with a headset a higher priority.  I am using the cheapest, most basic Walmart wall phone that money can’t buy and really need to get a wireless phone and a headset like I used to have some time ago.  One more thing that I really should not buy until after we move.  I don’t want more stuff in the house to get lost, ruined or just moved in general.  A speakerphone feature would be nice too.

I ordered in dinner before Dominica even got home to make the evening more relaxing.  We got pizza from Nino’s and spent the evening watching the final episodes of the final season of Third Rock from the Sun. Before getting to go to bed, Oreo made me walk him twice!  Then, got me up in the middle of the night so that he could hang out in the living room at three thirty.  He really needs some time at daycare to wear him out!

July 20, 2008: Garrett’s Baptism

Today is Garrett Grice’s baptism which is why Dominica, Oreo and I are in Frankfort this weekend. We all had to be up fairly early this morning so that they could get off to church for the nine o’clock mass. I couldn’t make it to church with them because I was scheduled for a nine o’clock conference call (or bridge as they are called around here) that was supposed to last until eleven. Nothing like last minute migration work on a Sunday morning 🙁

So while everyone else is at church, I am left home with the Boston Boys (that makes Oreo and Dexter sound like an old west stagecoach-robbing gang.) They appreciate not being left completely on their own.

Last night, I forgot to mention, we had a little Oreo incident here in Frankfort. When we arrived home from the Kitlas, Oreo got left out of the front door to come see everyone. He was not wearing a harness or anything. He came out and said hello and usually is quite good to stay near us, but just as he got to the sidewalk he spotted a large, young black lab walking down the street. Like a shot, Oreo was off and on that lab before we even knew what was happening.

Oreo, even at around eight years old, had that lab fleeing as best as it could (it was young but definitely full grown and many times Oreo’s weight) but it was leashed and trapped. The lab ran around its owner in circles trying to get away and Dominica’s father and I tried as best as we could to catch him but without a harness on he was all but impossible to get a hold of. It only took a few seconds before he had the lab down on its back and was on top of it. He wasn’t being vicious – just playing really, really hard, but the poor lab was in quite a panic.

Our saving grace came in the form of a flying Dexter who came full tilt from the house and plowed into Oreo knocking him off of the lab and then stood between them keeping Oreo away long enough for us to scoop him up. Oreo loses all ability to comprehend what is going on once he gets into his “hunt” mode even if he is just playing.

We were hoping that my conference call this morning would be short as we thought that the work was just going to be canceled.  So there was some possibility that the call would only last ten or fifteen minutes for me but it ended up taking more than forty-five minutes before they even mentioned getting to my stuff so that idea was right out of the window.

By ten o’clock we had only confirmed some work that was canceled yesterday and were not even up to the point where we could talk about work being done today.  It was a bit after eleven when I finally really pushed the point and got them to start on my work as I could not hang around for forever.  It was after eleven thirty when we finally wrapped up the morning work.

Needless to say, I was unable to make it to the church service or the baptism service that came after it.  I was still on the conference bridge long after everyone got home and after most everyone had left for the baptism party in Utica!  What a morning.  I am told, though, that the church was so hot that I would have been all soaked with sweat and feeling sick and that it turned out for the best that I couldn’t go or I would have felt awful.

We left for the baptism party at Grimaldi’s in Utica before noon.  It was a nice party – twenty five of us were there which was what was expected.  All family.  We had a nice time visiting with everyone.  Dominica and I have been so busy that we have barely had a chance to see anyone in quite a while.  As we get farther along in the pregnancy it will get harder and harder to see people as well.  Already we are having to place a hard limit on doing no additional traveling that is not already in the schedule or needed for the baby and/or house.  We just don’t have the time or energy.  Dominica is really, really sick with a bad cold and it is going to turn into a sinus infection or worse if she doesn’t stop doing more things than she should.  She isn’t getting anywhere near enough sleep.

After the party we got back to the Tocco’s and I was getting paged out, almost as soon as we arrived, to do more work for the office.  So I logged in and worked on another conference call for well over an hour.  What an exhausting day.  At least during the time that I was working this afternoon everyone took naps so I didn’t miss any “visiting” time.  Dominica got an hour and a half nap probably.  That will make a bit of a difference.

After nap time we had to hit the road so that we could get back to Newark at a reasonable time.  We hit the road just as the rain began.  It was a really heavy rain that caused all kinds of driving problems.  We were not able to get the car up to full speed due to the rain until almost Albany.

We got home to Newark a little before ten.  It is going to be another really hot week in New Jersey.  Temperatures expected in the low nineties tomorrow as well as rain.  Shortly after we arrived home the rain and thunder began here as well.