by Kulbir Saini on AMD, ATI, Configuration, Drivers, Fedora, Fonts, Graphics, Hacks, Hardware, HowTo, Installation, Linux, Screenshot, Tips - Tricks, Xorg

How To: Configure Dual Display with ATI Radeon (fglrx)

As promised in my last post (News: ATI Catalyst Display Drivers 9.9 Released), I am back with a post on configuring dual display with ATI Radeon HD Graphics Card and proprietary catalyst (fglrx) drivers from ATI.

Hardware Used

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3200 (256MB, onboard)
Monitor 0: ViewSonic VG1930WM 1440×900 (19″ LCD, Connected via DVI port)
Monitor 1: Samsung SyncMaster 793S 1280×1024 (17″ CRT, Connected via VGA port)

Types of Dual Display

  • Mirror: Both screens have same content, identical refresh rate and resolution.
  • Clone: Both screens have same content but refresh rates and resolutions can be different.
  • Horizontal: Both screens can have different content, refresh rates and resolution. Screen 1 is left or right of Screen2.
  • Vertical: Same as horizontal. The only difference is that Screen1 is above or below Screen2.

In this post, we are interested in Horizontal setup with xinerama on. This way we can have two desktops allowing full screen modes on both of them and allowing us to drag and drop windows from one screen to the other.

Install ATI Drivers

If you don’t have ATI drivers installed already, follow this How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) Drivers on Fedora 11 (works for any version of ATI Catalyst drivers).

Generate xorg.conf file

If you don’t see the xorg.conf file at /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then you need to generate it to proceed to next step. Use the following command as root to generate one

[root@fedora ~]$ Xorg -configure

This command will generate the default xorg.conf file at /root/xorg.conf.new. Copy it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

[root@fedora ~]$ cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Backup xorg.conf file

Backup your original xorg.conf file so that you can restore it in case the configuration doesn’t work the way you expected.

[root@fedora ~]$ cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Generate Configuration for Dual Display

Now we are ready to generate the configuration for dual display. Use the following command with appropriate arguments (in accordance with your hardware configuration)

# --screen-layout will place second screen on left of your first screen. Other possible values are right,above,below.
# --xinerama=on option enables you to have two different desktops and one of them being passive.
# You can drag and drop windows from one desktop to the other. Task bars appear only on one of the desktops.
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=left --xinerama=on
# --resolution=_screen_number_,widthxheight
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --resolution=0,1440x900 --resolution=1,1280x1024
# Set horizontal sync and vertical refresh rates for both monitors.
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --hsync=0,30-60 --hsync=1,30-60 --vrefresh=0,30-60 --vrefresh=1,30-60

You can download my xorg.conf file via this link.

Reboot or Logout and Login Again

If you just setup your ATI drivers and configured the dual display, you need to reboot so that fglrx module can be loaded properly. If you rebooted after setting up the drivers, just logout and login again to checkout your dual display 🙂 If everything works fine, say thanks to me and if not blame ATI 😛

Adjust DPI for Normal Font Size

I faced a problem with my font sizes being too big while using xinerama. It was easy to fix by adjusting DPI. Go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance. Go to Fonts tab. Click Details located near the bottom right corner. On that window, try descreasing the “Dots Per Inch” value. Mine worked fine with 85 DPI.

Below is an image of my dual display setup. Click to enlarge.

Dual Display Configuration ViewSonic Samsung Using ATI Radeon Catalyst (fglrx)

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by Kulbir Saini on AMD, ATI, Compiz, Drivers, Graphics, Hardware, Kernel, Linux, News, Xorg

News: ATI Catalyst Display Drivers 9.9 Released

AMD has released the next version 9.9 of its ATI Catalyst display drivers for Linux. The drivers can be download from ATI Catalyst™ 9.9 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver Page. I have already tried them with kernel 2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.i586 and they seem to work fine without SWCursor hack. But I still see corruptions around cursor while moving cursor in a playing video or in Compiz. BTW I got dual display working with Xinerama turned on with this version. I’ll post a HowTo about the same very soon. I think it’ll take some more time before the drivers are completely stable. AMD has been doing a really good job in rolling out drivers at regular intervals.

Note : The installation process is same as version 9.8 and can be access at How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) 9.8 Drivers on Fedora 11.

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by Kulbir Saini on Hacks, Internet, Memepress, News, PHP, Wordpress

News: Memepress (Yahoo! Meme) WordPress Plugin is out!

Yahoo! Meme is a new Twitter like service in testing by Yahoo!. But its much better than Twitter. It has got facility to post text, photos, video and music. The best thing about Meme is the user interface. I am just loving it. Such a clean interface 🙂 I liked twitter’s web interface very much because it was not cluttered like facebook and others. But meme’s interface is much better than twitter’s interface.

As I felt hooked to it, I thought it’ll be a good idea to have wordpress widget to display latest posts from Yahoo! Meme. I took Twitter for WordPress plugin’s source code and started modifying it to work for Yahoo! Meme and in a few hours, I managed to get a full fledged plugin for Yahoo! Meme and a few extra features and minor bug fixes as well 🙂

I have named it Memepress. For more details and latest updates about the plugin, please visit plugin homepage on wordpress. The plugin is really easy to setup and doesn’t have any dependencies and doesn’t even need to authenticate with Yahoo! Meme.

Comments/Suggestions?

Note: Yahoo! Meme is still invite only. If you need an account, send me an email using this contact form.

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by Kulbir Saini on Configuration, Email Client, GNOME, Google, HowTo, Installation, Internet, Screenshot, Tips - Tricks

How To: GNOME GMail Notifier

GNOME GMail (Google GMail) Notifier is an awesome tool for GNOME/Linux users if you are addicted to checking mails every few minutes. GMail Notifier solves a bit of your problems by notifying about multiple gmail accounts. One more plus point is that it can display GMail Notifications for new mails in accounts for which you are using Google Apps. Below is a step by step howto on installing and configuring GMail Notifier in Fedora (may apply to other distros as well).

Install GNOME GMail Notifier

You can download and install it from GNOME GMail notifier home page or just use yum

[root@fedora ~]$ yum install gnome-gmail-notifier

Launch Gmail Notifier

If installation was successful, go to Applications -> Internet -> Gmail Notifier.

GNOME Gmail Notifier

Open Preferences

Right click on Email icon in taskbar and click Preferences.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Select Prefreneces

Select Preferences

Set inbox update time to 1 minute. Check display notifications for new messages and errors. Also select a sound to play for new mails.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Prefreneces

Add GMail Account

Click Add on preferences window and add your GMail account.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Add GMail Account

Add Mail Account (Google Apps) (Optional)

If you don’t know what Google Apps is, leave this step. If you do know, then add your mail account.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Add Google Apps Account

Check Mail

If you can’t wait for 1 minutes to see GMail Notifier in action, just right click on email icon in taskbar and click Check Mail.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Check New Mails

Mail Notifications

Whenever you get a new mail, you’ll have bubble like the one in image below and a sound will also be played.

GNOME Gmail Notifier New Mail Notification

Enjoy the notifications 🙂

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by Kulbir Saini on Git, Hacks, HowTo, Installation, Programming, Python, Tips - Tricks, Twitter

How To: Install and Use Twython (Python Wrapper for Twitter API)

As promised in my previous post, here is a brief howto on getting started with twython. The main advantage of Twython over several other python (or any other language) wrappers for Twitter API is that it works even when you are behind your organizations proxy.

Download Twython

You can download latest version of twython from twython page on github. You can either clone using git (if you have git installed) or can click the download button.

Install Twython

Once you are done with extracting the downloaded tar file. Change directory to twython and run these command as root.

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[root@fedora ~]$ git clone git://github.com/ryanmcgrath/twython.git
[root@fedora ~]$ cd twython/dist
[root@fedora dist]$ tar -xvzf twython-0.8.tar.gz
[root@fedora dist]$ cd twython-0.8/
[root@fedora dist]$ python setup.py build
[root@fedora dist]$ python setup.py install

Use Twython from Python Interpreter

Below is a direct copy paste lines from my interpreter. See how things are working (learning by doing).

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[saini@bordeaux ~]$ python
Python 2.6 (r26:66714, Mar 17 2009, 11:44:21) 
[GCC 4.4.0 20090313 (Red Hat 4.4.0-0.26)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> # first of all, import twython module
>>> import twython
>>> # Authenticate your twitter account with your twitter username
... # and password with twitter.setup method.
>>> client = twython.setup('Basic','myusername','mypassword')
>>> client.authenticated
True
>>> #Lets update our current status on twitter with some cool message.
>>> client.updateStatus('Testing #twython. The coolest #TwitterAPI :)')
>>> # Now go and check your current status on twitter. Surprised!!!
>>> # Get your or anyone's followers
>>> client.getFollowersIDs(screen_name='gofedora')
>>> # Output truncated.
>>> # Get help for any function.
>>> print client.createFriendship.__doc__
createFriendship(id = None, user_id = None, screen_name = None, follow = "false")
 
	Allows the authenticating users to follow the user specified in the ID parameter.
	Returns the befriended user in the requested format when successful. Returns a
	string describing the failure condition when unsuccessful. If you are already
	friends with the user an HTTP 403 will be returned.
 
	Parameters:
		** Note: One of the following is required. (id, user_id, screen_name)
		id - Required. The ID or screen name of the user to befriend.
		user_id - Required. Specfies the ID of the user to befriend. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID is also a valid screen name. 
		screen_name - Required. Specfies the screen name of the user to befriend. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid screen name is also a user ID. 
		follow - Optional. Enable notifications for the target user in addition to becoming friends. 
>>>

So now you are ready to do wonders with twython. Write your own code and blog/brag about it 🙂