[nmglug] April 2008 Issues Log - Hardy 8.04, Xinerama, New Laptop, mono-1.9.1 and MonoDevelop

[Todd Richardson]

Not that this is of any importance, but I thought I would share with NG:

Since I've done several upgrades, I thought I would share the experience
and give insight on how I've overcome several issues that I've
experienced this month.

First off, I'm on a new laptop, and this is the first time I've
attempted using a docking station or port replicator.  Its a Dell
Latitude D830 and a D/Port Port Replicator.

My problem turned out to be that My external monitor was not configured
in my xorg.conf  I'm not a linux expert, so writing my xorg.conf file
was beginning to sound a little daunting.  I decided, since I have an
nVidia card, to use nvidia-settings instead.  ("sudo apt-get install
nvidia-settings" from a non-free repo)  Worked like a charm.  I'm now
dual headed (laptop and external) monitor.  (using the "enable xinerama"
check box on the nvidia-settings

I also do a little bit of c# scripting, and so I like to have a current
version of mono for all those nifty libraries that I'm used to using
from M$.  Mono 1.9.1 is available from the debian etch backports.

Props go out to this blogger for getting me started on this:
http://tempvariable.blogspot.com/2008/04/installing-mono-191-on-ubuntu-804-hardy.html

**Quick disclaimer about the above link: Canonical doesn't support these
packages, try the etch backports at your own risk

However, I did run into a few problems.  I was getting some massive
errors in trying to run MonoDevelop.  I ran across an obscure page that
suggested getting rid of all the data in the ~/.config/MonoDevelop/
Directory ("rm -rf ~/.config/MonoDevelop")  That fixed it.  I'm now
running 

After all this, I'm proud to report that I'm Hardy 8.04 all the way now
on my new setup.  I'm running vista virtually (virtualbox-ose) so I can
support my users, as I'm not fully up to speed on its interface.

Why would I post all this?  Well, this setup didn't come easy.  If I had
run across a page earlier that had suggested nvidia-settings, I would
have saved a lot of time.  I hope that in my contributing to this
community, I save someone else a little time.  

-Todd Richardson