Nvidia Dual Displays not being detected

Question

I just installed Ubuntu for the first time, downloaded 11.04 and updated to 11.10.
I have a setup with a NVidia 7600GT Graphics Card, with DVI-Out and VGA-Out. I have two displays connected to those plugs, and they work perfectly on windows. I updated to NVidia's latest driver with:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates  
sudo apt-get update   
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

and i still can't get Ubuntu to recognize i have two displays...

Can someone help me please?

Answer 1

To configure Your two monitors manually do:

sudo stop gdm

press:

Alt+Ctrl+F1

and log in. After that create xorg.conf file:

sudo Xorg -configure

The contents of the file should be written on the screen and the path to the created file should be written also (path depends on how You are logged, as super user or as Your user and just using sudo command)

Edit created xorg.conf.new (it is created instead of xorg.conf, but it is the same):

sudo gedit xorg.conf.new

You should find sections responsible for screen card and monitor. In my case these are:

Section "Monitor"
    #DisplaySize      380   300
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "AOC"
    ModelName    "919"
    HorizSync    30.0 - 80.0
    VertRefresh  55.0 - 75.0
    Option      "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "radeon"
    VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
    BoardName   "Radeon 2100"
    BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Copy Your monitor and screen sections and paste it somewhere in that file, and name (change Identifier) them Monitor1 and Screen1.

In Screen section corresponding to Screen1 change used monitor to Monitor1

Monitor "Monitor1"

reboot and then try to go to system->preferences->screen and detect monitors.

Answer 2

Open nvidia-settings and configure it there.

The proprietary driver does not integrate very well with Ubuntu's system settings.

Answer 3

Lately (yesterday) I have bought a new PC with i3 and two GT 430 VGA cards. I have installed proprietary drivers from nVidia website, and enabled xinerama. Everything works like gold :] Two VGA's and three monitors. So I am not convinced if nVidia drivers do not work well with Ubuntu.