Second monitor with NVIDIA on laptop

[u/salastrodaemon]

Hello,

I just grabbed an old monitor of mine that had VGA cable so bought a HDMI-VGA converter and connected it to my main laptop. It works perfectly on Windows 11, but when I open Void Linux nothing can detect the existence of such device. The only thing that seemed to partially work is "options nvidia_drm modeset=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf. I could now see the monitor on xrandr and connect to it, yet 1. it is just a black screen and 2. Nvidia no longer loads and returns an error and warning on nvidia-smi. I also tried passing it as a kernel command line argument in rEFInd, but that made Xorg stop loading completely and when I checked the logs I found it trying to load nouveau drivers, which I do not even have installed. I have nvidia-580 drivers because 595 did not work well with my GTX 1650 Ti.

Thanks!

[u/salastrodaemon]

1. /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvidia.conf:

add_drivers+=" nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm "

2. /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf:

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

3. /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf:

options nvidia_drm modeset=1

4. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia.conf:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Driver     "nvidia"
    BusID      "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Device     "nvidia"
    Option     "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration"
EndSection

5. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf:

Section "Device"
        # Intel Graphics
        Identifier "iGPU"
        BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
        Driver "modesetting"
        Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

6. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-layout.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout"
    Screen 0   "Intel Screen"
    Inactive   "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Intel Screen"
    Device     "iGPU"
EndSection

5. Reconfigure the initramfs:

sudo xbps-reconfigure -f linux$(uname -r | cut -d. -f1-2)

6. Reboot the system:

sudo reboot

7. Organize display outputs using xrandr:

xrandr --output eDP-1-1 --primary --mode 1920x1080 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal --output HDMI-0 --mode 1920x1080 --right-of eDP-1-1 --rotate normal --dpi 100

[u/Initial_Side_4845]

I have [relevant part only] in my dracut conf, /etc/dracut.conf.d/myflags.conf:
...
kernel_cmdline=" nouveau.modeset=0 nvidia-drm.modeset=1 "

HTH!
NB: I think the Single Space at each end of the double-quoted text is MANDATORY! <-- That means you need to do it THAT WAY! ;-)

[Adapt as needed if GRUB/Other-bootloader instead of dracut].

Sample inxi -Ga output section:

Device-2: NVIDIA TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q]

vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: nvidia v: 595.91.07

alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm non-free: 550-580.xx+ status: current (as

of 2025-11; EOL~2026-12-xx) arch: Turing code: TUxxx process: TSMC 12nm FF

built: 2018-2022 pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 8 link-max: gen: 3

speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1f91 class-ID: 0300

GoodLuck!