[NTLUG:Discuss] need video card advice

[Stuart Johnston]

ntlug at levelofdetail.com wrote:
> I'm thinking of building a machine with this fancy video card:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814121201
> 
> I assume that with the 2 DVI ports I can have a dual monitor setup with
> the one card. Is this correct? (duh!) 

Yes.

> Would there be some reason to go
> with two video cards instead?

None that I can think of.

> 
> This will be for a fresh install - probably Ubuntu or another
> Debian-based distro. I don't know whether distributions generally
> recognize and configure two monitors on installation.

Not generally, no.  You'll need to install the Nvidia binary drivers. 
For Ubuntu:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

Or Debian:

http://people.debian.org/~rdonald/index.php

Or directly from Nvidia:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

Then you'll need to configure it:

http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-8178/README/index.html