Can you see this? Multiple Monitors

Admittedly, this isn't the first time that I had to figure this out. But before, I had three guys in a little room who had all dealt with the issue before... and their advice: "Copy my config file verbatim, change nothing, if you're monitors are backwards, physically switch them... don't mess with the voodoo magic if you get it reversely-correct!"

And now, due to personal career growth ambition I'm no longer in the little room... and regrettably, not with the three guys... so I need to figure it out for myself... and the details go here!

I'll try to do a better job of tracking the steps...

Oh, and a quick "raise the troops" for internet radio station di.fm (sky.fm). This station rocks and is in danger for public access! Support Internet Radio!!!

And back to the configuration fun and games (but at least I'm listening to music pumped by my newly enabled sound card! So it can be done!):

Okay, so I finally found a site with all my system's specs (and it wasn't dell, those cheap salespersons!): http://www.disgruntledgoat.com/content/useful/gentoo_on_nspiron630m.php which explains installation of gentoo linux and might also provide helpful information for us.
--> The point: My graphics card is apparently Intel i915PM with GMA900 graphics

Aside: I remember when first building this machine I had to install some new driver for the video card to enable the better resolutions... I can't remember, so post a comment if you know what I'm partially remembering (blame the beer!)

So I backed up my xorg.conf file like the smart website suggested, then moved forward with the edit. I then executed the reconfiguration step, and immediately hit a "question"... I need to select a video card driver, and mine isn't listed. I opted for the i810 option, and viola! it worked ( I think)... the description for my card initialized to "IntelCorporation Mobile 915GM...."

I clicked OK through a couple more screens and then "trusted" the Video card's bus identifier promt (OK). I specified the system should share 128 Mb of RAM, since the card shares RAM with the OS.

I then went ahead and enabled X to handle some operations.. we'll see if it causes bad things to happen. Autodetected keyboard layout... set the XKB rule to xorg (was the default)... Took keyboard mode pc104... left keyboard variant blank... left Keyboard options as "lv3:ralt_switch" (no idea)... Mouse protocol ImPS/2... Yes for emulate 3-button mouse... left default X.0rg server modules... wrote default "Files" section to XOrg file... auto-detected monitor (came up with Generic Monitor - quite original)... selected a few resolutions since I know I'll be using multiple monitors... monitor size of 14"... then, I said I wanted to write some "File" section... and the utility exited with output:

xserver-xorg postinst warning: overwriting possibly-customised configuration file; backup in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.{timestampHere}

No idea if it worked, so I'll just reboot and see if I need to restore from backup. Well, logout/in seemed to work, so now for the reboot... And then... the nasty happened! Got a DOS-like message: "Failed to start the X server......" OUCH!

So, now for recovery:

I viewed the log file, and it said something about bad modes being present... so I'm chicken and will be promptly restoring the backup copy of xorg.conf file!

login to the text prompt
cd /etc/X11
sudo cp xorg.conf_backup xorg.conf

Then restart from prompt:

sudo shutdown -r now

Btw, I have some experience with Unix (HP-UX mostly, and some Solaris, with a touch of Linux). So some of this is pulling from the depths of memory while administrating the computers for the OSU Research Forests... but I digress.

And now, when everything starts back up... X does too! Hmm... what to do next... Maybe I'll skip the reconfigure and go straight for the... err... multiple monitors! yes!

...More fun and games coming soon! Under construction....