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I have spent several hours fiddling with different xorg.conf configurations without getting a different image on my monitors.

My setup uses an on-board Radeon chipset HD4200. This provides both DVI and VGA sockets. I have monitors connected to both.
Because I am using the proprietary AMD driver, device 0 appears as "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"

I made the following changes to my vanilla xorg.conf:

In Section "ServerFlags" I added the line:
Option "Xinerama" "true"

In Section "Monitor" (for monitor1) I added the line:
Option "RightOf" "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"

I identified that BusID should be 1.5.0 and 1.5.1 respectively.
The device0 section already had BusID "PCI:1:5:0".

In Section "Device" for the second one I added
BusID "PCI:1:5:1"

In one of Sections "Screen" Under subsection "Display"
I added:
Modes "1280x1024"
Virtual 2560 1024

Xinerama appears to be installed in one or more several library file.

None of these things made any difference. So what have I either done wrong or
not yet done? (Apologies for my abruptness.)

If you're using the fglrx driver, why no use the ATI control center? At least that is what i use at work for my ATI card.
Fire up

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aticonfig --initial

once as root with the monitors attached, and then reboot, login and start it via

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amdcccle

Unfortunately, I tried it.
The result was an unbootable system. Fortunately I had had this on another system and was able to recover (slowly).
The trouble stems from the fact that I had recently undertaken a full update, which included a new kernel (3.3.8).
The fglrx module was later than the installed drivers. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to tackle this again until I've
put a few shovels-full into the pile of work waiting for me!
Never mind. The thought was there. Thank you.

If you'd use dkms-fglrx then the kernel version would not be interesting, and the system wouldn't be unbootable.
In any case, you can just select failsafe boot, fire up drakx11 and select vesa driver to get the system working again.

I got back to it today and tried aticonfig again. This time I first printed out its various possibilities from:

http://wiki.cchtm.co/index.php/Configuring

I didn't bother with amdcccle I just rebooted. After logging in I found that I had kde4 on my right hand screen and a black screen on my left just showing
the cashew + Desktop title a top right.

After a few moments I found that I could move the cursor onto the left-hand screen by moving it off the right side of the right-hand screen!
(Not very intuitive).

By right-clicking on the left-hand screen I can get the desktop menu that has konsole as one of its options. From that I was able to open Firefox and later kaffeine. However they both behaved as completely new programs and had to be initialised. Not a huge drawback but overall a bit cumbersome. Can anyone through some light on this?

That apart I am delighted to have got to this point!

amdcccle is for setting up display positions and resolutions, if you don't want to adjust those directly in xorg.conf via an editor.

The default resolutions were fine so I left things as they were.

I have now enabled xinerama. I am amazed at how slick it is.

However if I were to make a single change, this is it:

I am facing my two monitors. The screen on my right is my primary screen.
If I want to drag stuff to the screen on the left, I have to drag it to the right!

I do not want to change the primary/secondary status of both screens but
can I change this behaviour?

there should be a section in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf like

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    Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "Xinerama Screen"
        Screen         0  "Screen0" 0 0
        Screen         1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
        Option         "Xinerama"   "true"
    EndSection

here screen1 is declared at RightOf "Screen0"

you should chech how this section is in your file

I was dubious about changing "Rightof" to "LeftOf" fearing that it would change my
primary screen to my secondary but it was fine.

I changed it a few minutes ago.

This is a real treat!

Thank you for your input.

If you would have paid attention to my advice, you could have changed that directly in the graphic tool, but whatever ...
Please mark the thread as [SOLVED].