fglrx - blank x window with mouse on second monitor

English Hardware
#1

I am running Leap 42.1 with two Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 Dual-X OC Version (UEFI) and fglrx driver. Each card has one displayport monitor connected. Trying to setup extended desktop with the second monitor. However, the second monitor only displays a blank x windows with mouse. Here is my 50-monitor.conf file:

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “aticonfig Layout”
Screen 0 “aticonfig-Screen[0]-0” 0 0
Screen “aticonfig-Screen[1]-0” RightOf “aticonfig-Screen[0]-0”
EndSection

Section “Module”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0”
Option “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
Option “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
Option “DPMS” “true”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0”
Option “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
Option “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
Option “DPMS” “true”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “aticonfig-Device[0]-0”
Driver “fglrx”
BusID “PCI:1:0:0”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “aticonfig-Device[1]-0”
Driver “fglrx”
BusID “PCI:2:0:0”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[0]-0”
Device “aticonfig-Device[0]-0”
Monitor “aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[1]-0”
Device “aticonfig-Device[1]-0”
Monitor “aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

#2

What you have there will simply create the two distinct X protocol Screens … this is the default handling of multiple adapters (one X Screen per adapter) *

You want to merge the two Screens into a unified desktop. The old (crappy) way was via xineramal. The fglrx driver used to implement something like that IIRC (haven’t used it in years).

The new way is via xrandr setproviders. I’m unclear of whether fglrx would support this method or not, but you can certainly try. (a first step in seeing if this might be possible would be to see what the output of “xrandr --listproviders” is)

I’m not certain what other type of facility the fglrx driver might provide for this scenario

  • except, you shouldn’t be cramming all of that into the monitor snippet file … what you’d want to do instead is put it into a xorg.conf file proper or put the relevant portions into relevant snippet files (i.e. device stuff in the Device snippet file and so forth) … But you probably don’t even need to do anything (period) to get that default situation created automagically by X
#3

xrandr --listproviders gives the following output:

Providers: number : 0

#4

I turned on Xinerama and it worked in Icewm but crashed in Plasma 5. Must be a limitation or bug with Plasma 5. Any other ideas?

#5

Abandon the prop. fglrx drivers and use the oss driver stack – then you’d be able to use xrandr without any problem.