[KLUG Members] Re: Dual Monitors + video cards in linux -- See the Xinerama HOWTO

[Adam Bultman]

Sweet.... Evidently, WindowMaker doesn't support dual monitors (seg faults 
every time) and gpm seems to be flipping out, but I'm getting closer.  
I've had the mouse problem before, but running command line params to it 
doesn't change it.  I touch the mouse, and the mouse like, totally flips 
out.  Wierd.  Changing the baud rate, speed, acceleration, enabling Mouse 
input support, all does nothing. Drat! So close.  I'll get it, though...  

Thanks for the help!

adam

On 11 Feb 2002, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> On Mon, 2002-02-11 at 22:01, Adam Bultman wrote:
> > Hello, folks.  I'm getting a new monitor, and this means that I can run 
> > dual monitors on my linux box.  I've been tinkering for a bit, and 
> > searching the net a bit, but not finding much to my chagrin.  Here's what 
> > I've got:
> > Red Hat 7.2, Xfree 4.1.0
> > Card one (AGP) : MAtrox Millennium G200, 8 MB on a Viewsonic A70
> > Card Two: (PCI): ATI Xpert@work, 8MB on a Samsung Syncmaster 500s.  
> > I ran XFree86 -configure, which created the dual-head config file, and if 
> > I run XFree86 -xf86config XF86Config, it pops up Displays on Both screens, 
> > which is nice (but the mouse is tweaked).  This makes me think I can do 
> > it, but again-- the mouse doesn't work, and I can't get much to pop up on 
> > there.  
> > 1. Are thre any utils that will help me (Xinerama is mentioned, but I 
> > haven't seen much of it-- apart from being an option passed to XFfree86).
> 
> XFree86 4.x natively supports multiple monitors.  By default, each
> monitor is setup as its own Xserver display -- i.e. Monitor0 is display
> :0, and Monitor1 is display :1, etc...  You then use Xinerama to bind
> other displays to :0 so :1 (and another other) monitors are targetable
> as :0 (and :1, etc... no longer exists).  You enable Xinerama by
> including it in the X startup string (usually under /etc/X11/xdm/,
> /etc/X11/gdm or /etc/X11/kdm, depending on your XDM manager -- X11,
> Gnome or KDE).
> 
> The Xinerama HOWTO covers all this:
> http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Xinerama-HOWTO.html
> 
> Unless you are using dual-headed Matrox or nVidia cards with an "unified
> frame buffer" (i.e. one card), you won't get hardware-based OpenGL
> acceleration.  But both Matrox and nVidia have excellent tools for
> Linux, and Matrox has even ported its "Powerdesk" suite.  I have several
> nVidia GeForce2 MX dual-headed cards and I'm getting hardware OpenGL
> acceleration over _both_ monitors.
> 
> [ BTW, if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say :0, just know
> that by default, your default display is "localhost:0".  X-Windows is
> "network aware" which means you can "target" other displays on other
> systems -- e.g., myserver:0, myworkstation:0, VNCserver:50, etc...  with
> the "-display blah:#" option, or my setting the variable
> "DISPLAY=blah:#".  Remember that UNIX is _multiuser_ and you can have
> multiple users on multiple displays on the same system, even if the
> displays are "virtual" (i.e. non-physical -- e.g., using the X virtual
> frame buffer or something like VNC). ]
> 
> > 2. Have any of you done this?  IT would totally kick butt if I could run 
> > dual monitors, especially if they ran as nice as on windows.  (without the 
> > crashing, of course).
> 
> Yes, Xinerama supports multiple monitors.  I have done it with 4
> monitors before -- both dual-headed G200 and dual-headed nVidia GF2MX
> cards.
> 
> > I fear I may have to run dual monitors in my windows box, which, as you 
> > all know, would be a waste...
> 
> Nope.  XFree86 4.x works great.  It can even do different resolutions on
> different card/monitor combos (_unlike_ Windows 2000).
> 
> -- Bryan
> 
> 

-- 
Adam Bultman
adamb@glaven.org