First make sure that the clone tag says “no” – <clone>no</clone>. if you don’t have this line, create it on the third line.
Next, make sure the <primary>yes</primary> is on the correct output. If it isn’t change it, but make sure you change the other to “no” as above.
Now restart your computer or restart X and it will load up with the correct monitor settings.
NOTE – This will only take effect after you have logged in. LightDM has its own monitor settings (that I will be posting soon).
Monitors.xml also specifies the position of your monitors.
The <x> and <y> values determine the position. They are based on the distance from the top left corner of the screen and are measured in pixels.
This set up includes a 22 inch monitor on the left, and 17 inch monitor on the right.
As you can see above, the first output device (or monitor!) has an <x> value of 0 (<x> is the horizontal position). The second output has an <x> value of 1680, which is equal to the <width> of the first output. This positions the secondary monitor 1680 pixels from the left – on the seam of the first monitor.
If you have some height differences in the position of your monitor you would need to edit the <y> value of the appropriate monitor.
As with any changes to this file, you will need to restart your computer or restart X to make these corrections apply. They will take effect after you have logged in as LightDM has its own monitor settings (coming soon).
These 2 lines set the resolution for the output devices (your dual monitors!). Set them appropriately for each of your devices. Sometimes your proprietary graphics drivers/software will fail to modify this file causing some conflicts. You should change this to match any settings you are specifying elsewhere.
Remember to restart your computer or restart X to make these corrections apply.
This entry was posted in Linux and tagged Dual Monitor, Monitor position, monitors.xml, Ubuntu on November 16, 2011 by Gareth Parmar.
I think the dialogue is meant to do this and essentially sets this file but for some reason sometimes it just doesn’t work! I’ve had so many test systems over the years and its only recently I found out about this file. But then again before I was changing xorg.conf that isn’t around any more!
This sounds like what I need to do to fix my problem but I have no monitors.xml file. I’m running 11.10.
Do you have the ATI or Nvidia proprietary drivers installed? these can sometimes delete the monitors.xml file.
the what should be done if monitors.xml is not there ?
Hello, This is one good new thing in 11.
the second monitor in 1024 the system boots in clone saying that the with limit is 2048.
How could you put your’s? I needed to put the second below the first and not to the right.
Many thanks in advance and a Like to you.
I’m guessing the resolution of your top monitor is 1024×768.
Thank you for this tip. Never knew I had this file on my system. It solved all my problems with dual monitors.