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I have a dell XPS 15 laptop (GTX 960M) with Ubuntu 16.04 installed which is connected to two dell monitors.

After installing the nvidia drivers via Sofware & Updates (I am using NVIDIA binary drivers version 378.09 from nvidia-378) I proceed to "NVIDIA X Server Settings" to configure which of my monitors will be the primary one.

Sadly, I am unable to configure the primary monitor and the monitors layout. All screens in "X Server Display Configuration" are shaded and with the following note:

"PRIME Displays cannot be controlled by nvidia-settings and must be configured by an external RandR capable tool. The display is shown in the layout window for information purposes only". (see NVIDIA X Server Setting screen-shot)

I am not sure if this is due to the nvidia drivers I installed or another issue alltogether. I checked on nvidia-drivers site and for my graphics card (GTX 960M) there are no drivers for a 64 bit linux OS, only 32.

If anybody has a solution such that I can configure my screens, choose primary display and which is to the left and right, I would greatly appreciate the help.

2 Answers 2

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Here is my recent revised solution on Ubuntu 18.04 to get screen synchronization on my External Monitor to ...

... STOP SCREEN TEARING!! with Nvidia Drivers in use

04/12/18 ∘ PRIME Synchronization on Optimus

To check:

sudo cat /sys/module/nvidia_drm/parameters/modeset

It Should say "y" for modeset=1, for your Monitor ex. HDMI-1-1, or eDP-1-1

To get PRIME Synchronization on Optimus when it says "N" for NO , create a new file in /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-drm-nomodeset.conf

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-drm-nomodeset.conf

And make sure the following line is present;

options nvidia-drm modeset=1

And after a Reboot or Update Intramfs Here is the Update Intramfs code sudo update-initramfs -u

Now sudo cat /sys/module/nvidia_drm/parameters/modeset, will give a Y for Yes, and screen tearing is greatly reduced!

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  • Great :) it works for Lenovo legion y720
    – madzohan
    May 29, 2018 at 5:25
  • Fantastic! I had been struggling for years with my Lenovo Y700 and this finally solved it on Pop!_OS 18.04.
    – sanwablo
    Nov 5, 2018 at 16:20
  • unfortunately for me it disables one of 2 external monitors (Ubuntu 18.04, dell precision 7520, 2 external monitors + laptop's monitor)
    – rgrebski
    Nov 28, 2018 at 8:20
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    This tecnique of Prime Synchronization (putting options nvidia-drm modeset=1 inside a config file in modprobe.d) completely broke my system. At restart, kubuntu restarted into a black screen. After 3 hours the solution was to remove a corrupted xorg.conf file: mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak Dec 7, 2018 at 0:00
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    Recent versions of PRIME as with Ubuntu 20.04 and Nvidia driver 440 do control the modeset with the file /lib/modprobe.d/nvidia-kms.conf so all other solutions will not work or might mess things up.
    – w-sky
    Jul 21, 2020 at 22:45
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Use the native Displays settings panel:

Displays Settings

You can open this by going to System Settings and selecting Displays, or by just searching for Displays in the Dash.

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