Bug 508559

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I have two ATI Radeon HD 2600PRO video cards, each of which can support two monitors.  I booted the SuSE 11.2 Milestone 1 KDE Live CD.  The YaST2 "Hardware Information" tool sees the two video cards.  SaX2 does not.  Normally, I have one monitor on each card.  (I have two more available for tests.)  To test SaX2, I moved the second monitor to the second plug on the video card SuSE was using, and told SaX2 to use Xinerama mode.  It brought up the second monitor in "test" mode, but they were cloned.  The mouse moved identically on both monitors, and as far as I could tell, the "resize" buttons did nothing.  I accepted the configuration and exited SaX2.  It then told me I would not see the second monitor until I restarted the video.

Unfortunately, it has been long enough since I had to boot up Linux and KDE separately, that I don't remember how to exit and re-enter without shutting down Linux.  So I shut it down.  I then went to Windows for some documentation, and returned the monitors to separate video cards.

Then I rebooted the SuSE Live CD.  (I did not remember to switch the second monitor to the first video card.  In any case I expected SuSE not to remember anything.)  SuSE started up, and then presented me with a login screen.  I gave it the username "linux" which was offered with an icon, and a blank password.  The login screen disappeared, to be replaced by a white arrow cursor on a black screen.  Ten minutes later, after nothing further had happened, I found that the cursor moved, but nothing else had any effect on the OS.  Keyboard entries, mouse buttons and ctrl-alt-delete were all ignored.  I did a hardware reboot.

As SuSE restarted, I connected the second monitor to the second port in the first video card, to match the configuration SaX2 had been given the prevous time.  This time, SuSE came up without a login screen, and immediately went into two-monitor clone mode.  Somehow, the Live CD had managed to preserve the configuration information (though it still was in "clone" mode).

I suspect you do not have a lot of systems around that have 2 video cards and up to 4 monitors (except perhaps gaming systems), so I am prepared to do more testing of SaX2 for problems like these.  If someone can point me at detailed documentation of SaX2, and perhaps of the data structures it manipulates, I will be happy to exercise it on this system.  I am not a system developer, but I have been using Linux for more than a decade, and have some competence with command lines as well as GUI tools.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Specific problems related to SaX2 in SuSE 11.2 M 2 Build 0116:
1. SaX2 sees only one of 2 video cards.
2. The "traditional" mode is missing, and "xinerama" mode becomes "clone" mode.
3. If SaX2 is in multi-monitor mode and the second monitor is not connected, SuSE KDE boot fails.  It goes through a login screen, which it normally does not.
Actual Results:  
SaX2 cannot find the second video card.  It cannot go to "xinerama" mode.  It does not have the option for "traditional" mode.  When one monitor is missing, it somehow breaks the bootup process.

Expected Results:  
In principle, I should be able to use up to 4 monitors in SuSE.  I can do so in Windows XP, in "xinerama" mode.  If one of two monitors is unplugged or powered off, SuSE should be able to boot.  The Live CD should not present a login screen.