Dual monitor display with GeForce GTX 590 under openSUSE 13.1 linux

Hi.
Windows on my desktop is no more. And not that I really miss it, even though as always with a fresh linux installation there's a lot to configure.

I've always wanted to try openSUSE so this time I've downloaded the live version of the newest and... Install was easy, quick  and flawless, only... I had no display on my second monitor.

I have a great GPU, able to run all games I play flawlessly, with SLI technology and so on. It can also give you stunning 3D Vision Surround, where if you plug 3 monitors to it your view will expand over three screens.

However I am only using two. Don't play games which would benefit from the above, but as a programmer I simply find it a must, to have another display.

Windows has always shown image on my two monitors, occasionally spitting bluescreen, so I was sure that it is maybe a "slightly faulty" GPU. You can never be sure with Windows... And now that I've noticed that Linux is not showing anything I got pretty much sure, but still decided to try, especially that nothing in the error logs indicated any hardware failures.

Apparently if everything is fine, then your openSUSE install, even with nouveau drivers (which are installed as default) should recognize your monitors and cards and work without problems.
However I had image only on one screen, the other remaining blank and showing "No signal" upon manual powerup.

I installed xrandr and it told me that:

DVI-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 

   1920x1080      60.0*+
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x800       59.8  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       70.1     60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        66.7     60.0  
   720x400        70.1
DVI-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Which wasn't true! I had both monitors plugged in.

I have ventured to Nvidia page, to check the drivers, because for some more advanced features I found proprietary drivers to work better in the past.
Besides on top of the above I should be seeing more than one disconnected monitor for this card, which meant that nouveau didn't recognize the card perfectly.

On GEFORCE site, they've suggested:
Also note that SuSE users should read the SuSE NVIDIA Installer HOWTO before downloading the driver.

I've found that HOWTO is for older versions, but it also said that already for versions 12 of openSUSE I'd be better to download drivers from the repository.

I chose the simplest way, because I didn't want to recompile drivers after every kernel update!

1. Update your Kernel via YOU (YaST Online Update)
2. Use YaST -> Software -> Software Repositories -> Add

Protocol: HTTP

Server Name: : download.nvidia.com
Directory on Server: /opensuse/13.1

to add the NVIDIA http server as additional installation source.


3. Use YaST -> Software -> Software Management
The appropriate NVIDIA packages should be autoselected, if your card is supported, for me it was: x11-video-nvidiaG03.... version of the drivers.

Now I could see all connections on my card, but they were still disconnected, however this time I've seen the correct order of the connectors! And I had my monitors plugged into the top and bottom DVI sockets, which is wrong for a two-monitor setup!

If you missed it, make sure, that for two monitors, you plug them into two slots which are in line, the order actually is important!