[wplug] Video card advice needed

[Jonathan S. Billings]

Greg Akins wrote:
> I'm looking to buy a video card to support dual monitors

Are both monitors VGA?  DVI?

> Does anyone have experience with the Matrox G450 using Linux?

I used a Matrox G450 for several years in a dual-monitor setup.  It 
works quite well for two VGA displays.  I had to abandon it when I got a 
DVI flat panel.

> Besides that, can anyone make a recommendation for one "well" supported 
> by Linux and relatively inexpensive (seems like $85 is the entry level, 
> I'd like to stay close to that)?

Many of the dual-port NVidia and ATI video cards have both a VGA and 
DVI+ port, so you can use two VGA or a VGA and a DVI display. 
Unfortunately, I've found that in most cases, you have to use the 
binary-only driver available from ATI or NVidia to support the 
dual-screen ability, which means that you aren't using X's Xinerama 
extension, but a somewhat-supported Xinerama-like functionality from the 
vendor driver.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>