This week I want to share a configuration file that I’ve used for years and other people might find useful. My Linux setup at home, currently running Fedora, uses two cheap LCD screens from Hanns-G. The model name is HW191D, and while the image quality is fine, they’re a complete pain to get running in tandem using the DVI connectors. It isn’t inux to blame either, I’ve had the same problem getting them to work with OS X and Windows XP, and gave up with the over-protective Windows 7. The problem seems to be that the EDID data provided by the screens, when connected digitally, is inaccurate, giving the OS the false impression that they’re only capable of 1024×768 when they’re much happier at a native 1440×900.

This solution is only going to work for people using Nvidia’s proprietary graphics drivers, but I was able to get around the problem by injecting a working EDID file into the old xorg.conf file, and manually creating Monitor entries, as well as creating a TwinViewXinerama display so that both screens could be used side-by-side. This has worked for Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSUSE and Fedora, as they’ve each been installed on my machine. But you’ll probably still need to change things like the mouse and keyboard configuration to suite your own hardware.

Here’s the xorg.conf file: xorg.conf (just place it in /etc/X11).
and here’s the EDID binary: edid.bin (which I’ve placed in /root).