If you use dual monitors with an ATI video card and Gnome, don’t use Gnome’s Screen Resolution capplet. The Screen Resolution capplet will reset the “DesktopSetup” option in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to the default of “clone“.If you’ve already used the Screen Resolution capplet and don’t want your desktop cloned, remove the following folder from your home directory:~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/screen
I really wish Gnome’s Configuration Editor would let you delete folders, but just deleting the folder and restarting Gnome works fine.
Thanks to everyone in #gnome on irc.gnome.org who helped me figure this one out!
Update: I’m an idiot. One of the students that uses Linux pointed out to me that the ATI drivers simple use a wider resolution when spanning monitors. So if I add “2048×768″ to my xorg.conf, the Screen Resolution capplet will work again.
