Many people now expect to have multiple displays or monitors working from their computer as a base level specification. Dell has always built this capability into their Windows Computers. (Both in the hardware that is offered and in the utilities that are installed from the factory.)
You can get multiple screens to work on your computer. However, you must have both the correct hardware and the correct software installed along with the support of the operating system.
Ensure that your Graphics drivers and software are installed and up to date. (They are open-source drivers which install by default and you can install proprietary drivers at need. ) You can find out more on the following article:
When everything is up to date, reboot your computer and the Ubuntu Desktop.
Connect the additional monitor or display to your computer. Ubuntu should attempt to automatically configure the additional screens.
To configure the additional screens yourself, go to System Settings > Display.
The top part of the configuration window displays the detected monitors or displays along with their names. (You can click the monitors and drag them into the correct alignment for how you have them set up.)
The bottom of the configuration window shows several options:
There is a checkbox at the upper right-hand side corner of the bottom half of the configuration window that switch the screens between Extend and Mirrored. (Extend is the default. Be aware of setting the screens to Mirror as this may restrict the possible resolutions in use.)
The first option down the middle is Resolution: This has a drop-down menu of choices. (It matches whichever screen that you have clicked at the top of the window.) The resolution is how big or small the screen appears, the detail is shown and the aspect of the screen.
The second option down the middle is Rotation: This also has a drop-down menu of choices. (Again it matches whichever screen that you have clicked.) The rotation decides which edge of the screen the display regards as being the bottom. This is useful if you have one or more of your displays that are mounted on their side. Where they give a Portrait, rather than a Landscape view.
The third option down the middle is Launcher Placement: This has a drop-down menu which gives a choice between the launcher being visible on only on one of the displays or on all displays. (The default setting is All Displays. The Launcher is the vertical taskbar in Ubuntu.)
The fourth option down the middle is Sticky Edges: This has a toggle between on and off. (The default setting is ON.) The purpose of Sticky Edges is to allow applications to dock to the edge where two monitors meet. It slows the mouse to give you more time to align the application correctly.
There is a button at the lower left-hand side corner of the configuration window that is named Detect Displays. It attempts to detect any screens plugged to your computer and assign an ID on each screen so you can see if your configuration is working.
There is a button at the lower right-hand side corner of the configuration window that is named Apply Settings that save your configuration.
Use this window and its various options to configure the multiple screens the way you want them. How you set your screens up is purely down to your preferences and needs.
There are two applications which can be used to achieve this sort of thing:
The first application is SynchWall. Use the command below to install it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:milarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install synchwall
Open the snychwall app and go to Preferences > Display parameters. Go to Multi-Monitor Display and select Extend image on the page below. Check the box next to share image between monitors to put the wallpaper across all your screens.
synchwall can also rotate wallpapers, apply effects, and more.
The second application is Nitrogen. You can search for it in the Ubuntu Software center or use the command below:
sudo apt-get install nitrogen
Nitrogen does not have a desktop launcher, so open it from the command line:
nitrogen
Go to Preferences and add your wallpaper folder. Select Full Screen at the bottom of the preferences window to stretch the same wallpaper across the monitors.
To get individual wallpapers on each screen select screen 1, 2, so on at the bottom of the preferences page to set each wallpaper on each screen.
You must install the GNOME Tweak Tool:
sudo apt=get install gnome-tweak-tool
Go to the Desktop section in the GNOME tweak tool and set the Have file manager handle the desktop option to OFF.
To have your configuration saved past a reboot, remember and add nitrogen --restore to your startup applications.
Most Flash videos and Games are shown within either the Chrome or Firefox browser. There are a couple of extensions that you can use that resolves this issue:
For Google Chrome or Chromium: MaximizeFlash resizes the flash video or game to fill the whole browser. If you press F11, it makes the browser full-screen on the monitor you selected.
For Firefox: Flash Game Maximizer adds a button to the addon bar that resizes the flash video or game to fill the whole browser. If you press F11, it makes the browser full-screen on the monitor you selected. (Be aware there are known issues with this extension and YouTube.)
You may not achieve the configuration that you want with the open-source drivers that default install on your computer. You may want to try the proprietary driver and utility that comes from the video GPU manufacturer. Sometimes going from the proprietary driver to the open-source driver can achieve the results that you want, depending on what you are trying to do. The basic advice is - if you are having problems with one, try installing the other instead and see if you experience the same issue?
As in Windows, you can use the software that installs with the proprietary driver to configure your video devices and to configure your multiple displays. Each manufacturer has more information about their support site about how to use their specific software.
Install Compiz Config Settings Manager (CCSM):
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
Open CCSM and go to General Options > Display Settings.
Clear the Detect Outputs box.
In the outputs array, set each of your display screen resolutions.
Go back to section 2 and configure your display again in Ubuntu's display settings.
There are a series of steps below. They take you through creating a script that allows you to fix the positions of your multiple monitors. It keeps them past a restart or coming out of suspend:
Delete your old monitors.xml file and create one using the Gnome display settings tool:
rm ~/.config/monitors.xml
gnome-control-center
Go to Displays and change the positions to how you want them.
Open the file ~/.config/monitors.xml in an editor and ensure that the primary display has a yes for the primary flag.
Install the libxml2-utils package if it is not already installed:
sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils
Use the commands below to copy the script to a directory on your path and make it executable:
sudo wget -O /usr/local/sbin/update-monitor-position http://www.calgorithms.com/assets/files/update-monitor-position
chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/update-monitor-position
Use the System > Startup Applications tool to add update-monitor-position so that it runs when you log in.
Reboot your computer and check the script works.
Search for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Ubuntu