Extended desktop in Linux

Question

My goal is to have an extended desktop like in windows. Linux only uses my second monitor as a mirror, which is useless. I have searched a lot on google and SO for a way to get this right. I want linux to use both my monitors for one extended desktop, not as a mirror. As of yet I have not found out how to do this. Any help appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

OK so a colleague explained it to me. Apparantly xrandr comes with almost all linux distributions. The proper way to use xrandr to set multiple monitors to display a different part of the same desktop is as follows:

xrandr

Shows you the names and dimensions of your displays. Say VGA1 and VGA2. Then if VGA1 is the screen on the left and you want VGA2 to extend it to the right you use:

xrandr --output VGA2 --right-of VGA1

Thats it. Was looking for this on google and SO for hours, finally its working! Hope this will help other people as well. Dont know how to save this setting yet and I dont know if this is the most elegeant/best way to do this.

When you know the answer its easier finding other answers. Here are two sources that show how to save this setting as well. (although that does not work on my system as the files they point to cant be found)......

intel guide to xrandr

thinkwiki guide to xrandr

Answer 2

xrandr --output VGA2 --right-of VGA1

You get xrandr help if the first option is misspelled.

Answer 3

After you get your displays extended as @Leo explains, you can fine tune their placement using arandr from the terminal. It brings up a gui for xrandr.