Re: Multiple Displays

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2001 at 09:43:21AM -0700 or thereabouts, Russ wrote:
> I've recently setup a new LFS system with gnome/sawfish/xfree86 as a GUI.
> 
> My setup requires dual-displays.  I've setup XFree to accomodate this, 
> and both displays are loading appropriately.  However - I'm seeing 
> little support in the way of dual displays from Gnome.  Or perhaps, I've 
> not 'found' the information I require..  I haven't at this point seen an 
> equivalent of -display :0.1 within gnome/gtk applications..
> 
> I expect this could also be a limitation of sawfish, I have not looked 
> into this aspect of yet - nor have I started perusing the source for 
> answers..  If anybody can recommend an alternative without me having to 
> go there, it would be appreciated. -)

I recently ended up with two monitors plugged into one computer.
It's all very strange :) I started with xinerama running, but it
made my head hurt, and I kept losing the mouse. I noticed that 
the panel wouldn't stretch across both screens and that the 'logout'
dialogue would appear split across the two screens, which struck
me as less than ideal. Windows kept popping up on the 'other' screen,
no matter which I looked at. (My fault, I could have set the window
manager -- wmaker -- up to sort this, I think.) 

Now I have stopped with xinerama and just do 'startx'. GNOME
-- or something --  starts on both (I get the window-manager-provided
background on each) but they are treated as separate. The mouse can
wander across the two but I can't drag windows. This is much
simpler. I tend to use the spare screen for xine and start it
with " DISPLAY=:0.1 xine".

You should not need to read the source of window managers or
GNOME to understand this stuff. You may, however, have to read
the docs for the window manager and/or for X. There are HOWTOs
out there. If someone wants to write one for GNOME, that would
be very cool.

Other people have been a lot more adventurous, but I have decided
one screen is enough for me :)

Telsa