Description of problem: I recently did a fresh install of Fedora 8. I had previously been using Fedora 7, and have made no hardware changes. When I went to use system-config-display to configure my system as dual head, Xorg promptly crashed. After much trial and error, I found that usually removing the line Option "Xinerama" "on" from my xorg.conf's server layout would usually get Xorg working, albeit without dual head. Unfortunately, the cause of the crash isn't always reproducible, and I'm currently using the attached xorg.conf, as generated by system-config-display, bug Xorg is not showing separate desktops. How reproducible: Inconsistent. Usually turning off or on dual head support and then restarting will cause the problem, but it's not consistently on or the other. Sometimes I'll turn off dual head support, restart, and get a crashed X. Other times I'll turn it on, restart, and get a crashed X. Steps to Reproduce (assumes you have two monitors): 1. Launch system-config-display. 2. Under the Settings tab, set resolution to 1280x1024. 3. Under the Hardware tab, set monitor to "Samsung SyncMaster 910V/910M/913V" .and video card to "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]". 4. Under the Dual Head tab: 4a. Check "Use dual head" 4b. Set Second Monitor Type to "Samsung SyncMaster 910V/910M/913V" 4c. Set Second Video Card to "ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)]". 4d. Set resolution to 1280x1024. 4e. Set Desktop layout to "Spanning Desktops". 5. Click OK, then restart X. Actual results: Xorg should show a single desktop spanning both monitors. Expected results: Xorg either mirrors a single desktop in each monitor, or show a Blue Screen of Death, explaining that it has crashed, possibly due to a bad xorg.conf. It will then attempt to show you the Xorg logs, and attempt to restart X. Additional info: I used this identical setup in Fedora 7 without issue, and I've made no hardware changes since the previous edition.
Created attachment 292283 [details] Current xorg.conf that doesn't crash X, but also doesn't show spanning desktops, even though it contains two screens.
did you install all the x.org related updates?
Yes, the first way I tried to fix it was to install all updates with yum. Since then I haven't been able to get it to crash, but it still refuses to support a dual head display.
ah try grabbing the ati driver from updates-testing.. xrandr is the way forward in any case old-dualhead is getting harder to do properly..
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Fedora 8 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2009-01-07. Fedora 8 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.