Hi Graham,

We use nVidia graphics cards and drivers, with basically
no problems to report over the past 4+ years. Most of
their cards have dual output, and many are digital (so
you can get what you want). Their drivers have worked
tremendously well, and are updated fairly often (though
we don't download them unless we do a new installation).

Note that we have only used RedHat/Fedora distributions,
though I have not heard of a driver problem with any
other distribution. And note that we have used every
RedHat distribution, since 7.3.

So:

1. install the card (we have used GeForce and Quadro)

2. download the driver from nvidia:
o [nvidia.com]
o in text: [nvidia.com]

3. install the driver (run the NVIDIA-Linux... script as root)

4. update /etc/X11/xorg.conf
o change the "Device"-"Driver" to "nvidia"
o add a "TwinView" section for the second monitor, e.g.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "false"
Option "TwinView"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "31-64"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60-60"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768"
EndSection

Note that the lines from "TwinView" to "MetaModes" are the
ones added for a second monitor. Your Sync/Refresh rates
will vary, of course.

5. restart your X server (ctrl-alt-backspace (not delete))
(this logs you out, so you should close files, first)

And you should be golden. Assuming the card is in, this
can take just a couple of minutes.

- rick