Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Ubuntu with multiple monitors having multiple panels (taskbars)

The following is how I enabled multiple panels (taskbar in Windows) in Ubuntu for my, currently two, monitors and my nvidia card. In this tutorial, the words panel and taskbar will be used interchangeably.

First, go to your nvidia settings page with: sudo nvidia-settings and in the X Server Display Configuration section, set the Configuration of monitors to TwinView. Apply and Save to X configuration File.

After all that, Log Out so that the X Server can be restarted and your settings can be applied.

When you now log in, you should have your multiple monitors enabled and a desktop that is stretched across the monitors. Now it's time to add a panel (taskbar) to your other monitors.

Right click on your existing panel and select New Panel. Your new panel will now be added to your primary monitor. Right click on it and set it's Orientation to Bottom.

Next, hold the ALT key and drag your newly created panel to the other monitor.

The final step is to set the panel to display the windows that currently on that monitor. To do this, right click on it and select Add to Panel and choose Window List. Now you should see your windows on the new taskbar.