I have Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx.

I have until recently been using a nVida Graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT) with two monitors attached, this all worked fine and dandy. A couple of days ago I bought two new identical LCD monitors for a multi monitor setup and two ATI graphics cards (ATI Sapphire Radeon HD5450).

NOTE *All monitors work fine in Windows XP, 2k, Vista and 7

After I had booted into Ubuntu only one display came on, that I kind of expected anyway, then I removed the driver for the nVidia card and downloaded the ATI version which gave me the ATI Catalyst Control Center - in that only two of the displays were showing the third was disabled and showing unknown driver.

I enabled the third monitor that stated "Unkown Driver" and had to reboot, upon reboot none of the displays work. I restarted and booted up into recovery mode and from now that is only what I can get into using a failsafe driver. It seems according to the log that a server is already active for Display 0 and I have to remove /tmp/.X0-lock and start again.

This is what the log file is saying:

Fatal Server Error Server is already active for display 0 if this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock and start again.

(WW) xf86 closeconsole: KDSETMODE failed: Bad file descriptor (WW) xf86 closeconsole: VT_GETMODE failed: Bad file descriptor (WW) xf86 closeconsole: VT_GETSTATE failed: Bad file descriptor ddxSigGiveUp: closing log

I have tried looking at my xorg.config file but unfortunately I have not really got a clue as to how it "should" be - I have tried regenerating it using this command from a terminal: sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg but that had no effect so I am currently stuck in failsafe driver mode but two monitors are active but are mirroring each other.

I hope that this is not to long - looking back I have been going on a bit! but I am just trying to explain as much as I can... I have asked this on Linuxquestions but nobody seems to know either or at least I have not had any responses.

Could some kind soul please help explain what I can do from here? I would be eternally grateful.

Chris

* Update *

Removing xorg.conf does nothing other than allowing me to use only two monitors - using the command: sudo aticonfig --initial generates the xorg.conf file below: but does not work either - I just get two monitors...

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
    Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Files"
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 "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
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

I have tried using this command from a thread on the Ubuntu Forums with a question similar to mine: sudo aticonfig --initial=dual-head --adapter=all

Generated xorg.conf file

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

Section "Files"
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[0]-1"
    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 "Monitor"
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[1]-1"
    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[0]-1"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen      1
EndSection

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

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[1]-1"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
    Screen      1
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[0]-1"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-1"
    Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-1"
    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

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

This upon reboot renders ALL monitors blank and I have to go into recovery mode and use a failsafe driver. This is so much harder than I thought it would be, I don't think Ubuntu likes ATI for multi (3) monitors or maybe the other way around. Can anyone help still?