Post Reply

Forums -> Multiple monitors -> Multi-monitor with Linux
Christian Studer   2000-06-30 23:06
See http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/linux/ for an introduction to multimon with Linux. If you use a multimon Linux system yourself, share your experiences here.

Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
braindead   2000-07-01 07:15
i guess i should add that <a href="http://www.enlightenment.org">enlightenment</a> features better multimon support than kde.

<a href="http://www.mandrake.net/">mandrake</a> (one of the devs) has a 3 monitor setup himself (see screenshots and webcam) and is usually very helpful with user questions.

cheers
brain
Christian Studer   2000-07-02 00:02
I have installed Enlightenment 0.16.3, but apart from not having a taskbar, the problems seem to be the same as with KDE.

Any special settings I need to configure?

Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
Doug   2000-07-03 02:28
I am running XFree86-4.0-0.16 as a binary rpm from rawhide. I use Enlightenment 16.4 from cvs on 06/04/2000. I love xinerama. I have had no problems what soever. I only have two monitors and the secondary is the right of the primary. The only downside I have seen is that X eats up more memory. This may be more related to the mgag driver than xinerama. I have noticed on my g200 at home and my g400 at work that X 4.0 takes a lot more memory than X 3.3.
Christian Studer   2000-07-04 05:35
Seems like there was no Xinerama support in 0.16.3 yet. I have now installed 0.16.4-2, and things are definitely better: windows maximize to monitor, and dialogs aren't split across monitors. But two problems remain: you can't have a monitor to the left of the primary, and using different resolutions still doesn't work properly.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
Mandrake   2000-07-05 02:00
Yeah pretty much I released 0.16.4 specifically to add xinerama support into the release tree of enlightenment. The only thing that I really forgot was xinerama support for the focus list (alt-tab) but that was mostly just an oversight. Right now I'm currently well under way working on 0.17, which should have more xinerama-aware features (mostly 0.17's major change in UI is the integration of a file manager and DnD configuration)

Mandrake
Senior Software Engineer
VA Linux Systems
Mandrake   2000-07-05 02:03
Monitor left of the primary problem is an issue with xfree 4.0.0, try upgrading to 4.0.1 - LeftOf didn't work until then.
And different sized resolutions should still work okay with enlightenment 0.16.4, it should pay attention to individual head resolution for things like placement, etc.


Mandrake
Senior Software Engineer
VA Linux Systems
Christian Studer   2000-07-05 04:54
Thanks for the info, I'll give 4.0.1 a try. I have already updated the article to include information about Enlightenment.

When using different resolutions, I had the problem that menus would extend below the screen edge on the lower-resolution monitor. But I'll try this again when I have installed the new XFree.



Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
Mandrake   2000-07-05 05:02
if you have menu scrolling enabled, it should scroll properly when you hit the edge of any particular head, as normal - it should also keep the menu onscreen when initially displaying it as well. you must have compiled enlightenment with xinerama support enabled for this to work (although I'm assuming that you did that... I will have to set up an odd setup to test it myself here). Also, you should get edge resistance between heads when you move windows between heads.

Mandrake
Senior Software Engineer
VA Linux Systems
Christian Studer   2000-07-05 09:01
Have now installed XFree86 4.0.1, but unfortunately the third monitor (Permedia 2) now doesn't work at all in multimon configs (it does work okay when it is the only active monitor).
It starts up, but then goes immediately on standby, and X doesn't continue loading, it remains at the gray striped screen.

Could this be some sort of resource allocation problem? Here's how the Permedia 2 behaves with my multimon OSes:
Win2000: perm2 works fine
Win98,SE,Me: perm2 doesn't work
X 4.0.0: perm2 works fine (apart from the LeftOf problem)
X 4.0.1: perm2 doesn't work

I also tried Enlightenment again with Xinerama and two monitors at different resolutions. As you said, this does work, windows maximize correctly. Menus work partly, the main menu always scrolls into view, but submenus don't.


Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
Christian Studer   2000-07-06 09:24
I have updated the Linux article again. With the latest XFree and Enlightenment, multimon actually works very well!

Christian Studer
http://www.realtimesoft.com
Justin   2000-08-18 21:43
I've been running multiple monitors on my main box since mid-98, with Windows 98 and Windows 2000. I'm almost ready to dump Windows completely - the only thing that held me back before was that once using multiple monitors, you can't go back :)

I'm almost there... Here's my setup:

- Two identical Voodoo3 2000 PCI cards @ 1280 x 960, 32 bit color
- Secondary monitor is to the right of primary
- XFree86 4.0.1
- Helix-Gnome 1.2
- Enlightenment 16.4-2 (just updated)

With Enlightenment 16.4-1, I was able to run both monitors, with the obvious flaws (maximizing etc). After reading the How-to, I updated to 16.4-2, and now the system freezes at about 14% on Enlightenment's progress bar... I can still telnet from my other box to do a clean reboot, but I lose my keyboard/mouse and both screens (they continue to show the Enlightenment backdrop).

Other than the minor update to Enlightenment, I have made no changes. I updated using the RPM...

Once I can crack this one last issue, it's good bye MS Windows forever on my main box :)

Thanks in advance for any help.

- Justin
Justin   2000-08-18 21:49
PS - Just to add to the above, I am currently using the above configuration, with the only difference being that I commented out the second Screen option in /etc/X11/XF86Config - so the updated Enlightenment works just fine on one monitor (the +xinerama option is also still enabled, only because I forgot to remove it)...

This narrows down any possibility of (for example) a corrupted download or bad installation/upgrade...

- Justin
Son_of_Tux   2000-08-29 14:38
Ok, I can confirm that e is running quite well with xinerama ... but how about KDE or KDE2? Are there any tips avail how to enable KDE to use xinerama? It seems to me that merely the KDE apps have problems initializing on a xinerama X Server - I also tried running KDE on e with xinerama enabled. No stable results. e crashes.

Gurus where are you ;-) ?

Robos   2000-12-19 06:44
Hi!
I'm using multimon already and it's working fine.
But now I want to run multimon on my other computer as well, but with a monochrom card and monitor!
This was already implemented before Xfree4.0.1 and I think I got it correct in the XF86Config file, but now: How do I direct output to that monitor?
I found nothing on the net and also the XF86_Mono readme and man-page aren't helpful. I'm using debian2.2 and Xfree3.3.6 (?) but general pointers would already be welcomed!
Thanx in advance!
Robos

P.s.: Could posters also write an email since I lost track of all my postings...
Robos   2000-12-20 08:04
Hi again!
I found it out for myself! (Not much doku on the net, though...)
dmesg told me linux found the hercules card and that it had given tty13-16 to the card. So a cat example.txt >/dev/tty13 works!
Now I have to figure out how to control the output...
IwakuraLain   2001-02-28 12:05
Ok, getting the first card and monitor installed was not a problem. Of course the second card and monitor is a different story. Of course, being new to Linux is adding to it I'm sure. Ok, I have two identical monitors, a elsa erazor x and the primary video and voodoo 3 3000 as the secondary card. How would I got about installing the second card. From there is not a problem as I have found instructions on that part. thanks for any help at all.
Christian Studer   2001-03-01 08:25
Have you already added your second card to the XF86Config file?

Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
Mazhar Memon   2001-03-22 02:36
Color Problems in Multimon.

Is there a way of forcing color depth on one monitor in the multimon configuration? I currently have 2 monitors (1600 x 1200), one monitor is using a TNT2 and the other a Savage4. The primary monitor (with the TNT2) works fine but I seem to have trouble setting the colordepth on the monitor with the savage (currently at 8-bit). I was able to force resolutions on both monitors in the XF86Config, but X is determined to use 8 bit color on the secondary montor. Any suggestions?

Also, since savage drivers in X need a lot of work, does anyone know of future releases?
Scott   2001-04-06 15:36
I'm looking for docs on configuring XFree with
a dual-head card.

The card is an AGP 4x/2x GeForce2 MX DH Pro.
The system is RH7.0 (2.2.16-22), and I'm currently
building XFree86 4.0.3 and the NVIDIA recent
0.9-4 kernel driver.

I've found pleanty of docs that focus on setting
up dual VGA cards with XFree, but none that really
provide any detail for dual-head cards.

Any pointers to documentation covering the DH setup would be much appreciated. Ultimately
I would like to view an example XF86Config-4 file
setup for the same (or similar) card as I have, most specifically the "Device" and "ServerLayout" sections.

Thanks!

Scott
Christian Studer   2001-04-07 00:46
The 0.9-769 drivers include documentation for setting up TwinView.

I have uploaded the relevant files:
TWINVIEW_README
XF86Config.NVIDIA

Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
spoonm   2001-06-27 13:51
well, I don't want to run xinerama
so right now I have 3 monitors/video cards

when I run x, the primary start enlightenment, and the other two wait, then after the primary is done, the 2nd and 3rd load at the same time
this causes a whole slue of errors, often leading to enlightenment to freeze...

is there a way around this
mike   2001-10-26 06:15
I just set up mandrake 8.1 on a dual monitor system. I haven't been able to configure the monitors. Both are on and working under KDE, but exist as two seperate desktops, instead of one. I tried to edit the XF86Config-4 but it wont let me save it. what now?
nate   2001-11-30 09:33
Yes I have the EXACT same problem... How can you combine the two seperate desktops into one huge place your mouse can transverse? Right now my mouse can only use the main monitor but the secondary one has its own enlightenment loaded but no mouse can use it :-(
Christian Studer   2001-11-30 12:57
You need to use Xinerama mode, see my Mandrake reviews for details.

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Braden D.   2002-05-08 01:01
Hello...

I just got Mandrake 8.1 functioning on my system, as before I was having problems with my modem. Now that i got it running i want to use my RadeonVE like i did in windows with my dual monitors. Is there anyone else with a Radeon VE that is in the same situation as me? I was wondering... is it ideal to run Enlightenment alongside with KDE because of it superior mulitmonitor support? I don't know much about Linux... because i just switched over last night, so bear with me :)

What are some of the common problems?
Thanks
Ron Christopher   2002-11-27 01:13
Had it working flawlessly in KDE 3.0.3 with Mandrake 9.0 .

I'm not sure what happened, but I'm back to non xinerama style of duals, and when I turn on xinerama, I get no menus, toolbars, etc, and a grey box centered in the Left (monitor2) screen that I can't alter.

- Ron
Skeletonkey   2003-06-21 16:33
Having trouble using 3 monitors. I can get all three to work, but each display is identical where I want one giant monitor.
My config:
Gforce4 ti4600
Gforce4 mx420
ATI RAGE64

My cursor starts on my boot monitor (atirage) but when moved it goes to my ti4600 and stays there.

Any idea what might be causing this?
Thanks in advance
The_Magistrate   2003-06-22 08:23
I started using multiple monitors in RedHat 7.2 and haven't stopped since. I never had any major problems with my setup except for XFree86 not handling different color settings. All I did to get around that was keep all my screens running 1280x1024@24bits. I might not like it, but it works. I actually got a monitor working in Linux about 6 months before I got it working in Windows. Windows gave me some "Error code 10." BS and wouldn't start the video card. The card worked fine in Linux though. So I have actually had a better expierence using multiple-monitors in Linux than I did in Windows(apart from having to decode the format for the XF86Config file.)

-- The_Magistrate
G   2003-06-23 08:11
I'm running dual monitors in RedHat 9 with my Ti 4600. I'm running the secondary monitor @ 1024x768 and the primary @ 1280x1024. What I really wanted to achieve was to use the secondary mainly for Videos. When I first started I would get windows popping up on the secondary all the time (annoying). I was able to almost completely overcome this problem by compiling and installing the latest cvs of metacity (it has better window history handling).

Mplayer:
I tried to get the different options working (ie -geometry, -guiwd, etc.) with no success. I finally stumbled accross the x,y settings in each of the seperate skin config files. .. At least now the mplayer video window and gui start on the second monitor. I can hit maximize and it will maximize to that screen.

$0.02

PS: If anyone else has some tips I'd be glad to hear them.
G   2003-06-23 08:16
Oh yes ... Forgot to mention ...

If you've never done twinview with the Nvidia drivers.. YANC will probably help you figure it out / get started.
Grant   2004-06-25 03:10
I want to use multi head display on Compaq N1050v, ati mobile radeon chipset. currently if external monitor is not plugged in on boot it clones the LCD screen, if it is plugged in on boot it is blank. I want either screen spanning or seprate desktops on LCD and external monitor. Mandrake does not install any multimontor setup for me with its autoinstall. The autodectedt says I have a Radeon IGP330M/340M/350M (U2) 4337. I also tried following "Using Xinerama to MultiHead XFree86 V. 4.0+" but the auto cofig setup did not put any signal to the external monitor. I tried setting thing up just making two devices screen 0 and screen 1 on the same adapter as mentioned in some debian list but no luck getting dual monitot support.

Mandrake reply when I bought a support ticket was
"have you ever done this in windows? i ask this because on laptops i've
owned/used what you are trying to do is not possible. the external connector
is controlled by the laptop's bios and is an alternate to the built-in
monitor. it isn't intended as a dual head setup."
But from I have found the radeon mobilty series does have dual head support.

Any suggestions on getting dual head on this laptop?Does any know where windows supports dual head on this model?

Thanks,
Grant
XerozoreX   2004-07-13 03:16
grant,
i also have a compaq laptop with a radeon igp 340m. YES, it can support multiple monitors. what version xfree86 do you have? there is a bug in version 4.3 that prevents xinerama for this chipset :( however, last night i upgraded to mandrake 10.0 (xfree86 ver. 4.3.0.1), now i have no problems with xinerama. you may need to manually configure the XF86Config (or XF86Config-4) file found in /etc/X11/ (also, you will need to be logged in as root to save any changes, do this at the command prompt by typing "su")

here is a copy of my config file, since we have VERY similar machines you might even be able to copy it. hope it helps!
(if manual edit doesn't work, type XFdrake from the command line and try that also)


Section "Files"
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Mandrake 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
FontPath "unix/:-1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
Load "dri" # direct rendering
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "Keyboard"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbCompat" ""
Option "XkbOptions" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/usbmouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse2"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "LCD Video Card"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:5:0"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "VGA Video Card"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:5:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "LCD Monitor"
# HorizSync 30-94
# VertRefresh 50-75
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "VGA Monitor"
# HorizSync 30-60
# VertRefresh 50-75
Option "CRTScreen" "true"
# Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "LCD Screen"
Device "LCD Video Card"
Monitor "LCD Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "VGA Screen"
Device "VGA Video Card"
Monitor "VGA Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600"
ViewPort 1 0
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "LCD Screen" 0 0
Screen 1 "VGA Screen" RightOf "LCD Screen"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1"
InputDevice "Mouse2" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "false"
Option "DontZoom" "false"
Option "BlankTime" "2"
Option "StandbyTime" "5"
Option "SuspendTime" "10"
Option "OffTime" "15"
Option "Xinerama" "true"
EndSection

XerozoreX
Choo   2004-10-13 20:21
Based on the information in this website, I know that Linux OS can supports multi monitor. Can i know exactly, how many monitor is able to be supported by Linux OS?
Rob   2005-04-14 12:52
Here is an example of a triple-monitor setup on a NV-GF-MX440 (twinview capable) card with two LCD monitors attached and NV-RV-TNT with one monitor attached:
---- Begin File ------
##########################################################################
## Automatically generated file by buildxconf.ml. If you edit this file the
## hardware detector will no longer be able to modify it. If you want to
## give control back to the hardware detector, remove
## /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and run /sbin/buildxconf to re-create it.
##
## See Also:
## 'man devices-overview' for information about the detection system
## 'man setxconf' a utility for interacting with the detection system
## to modify the X configuration
## 'man XF86Config' for the format of this file
#########################################################################


Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/nvidia-driver"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

FontPath "unix/:7100"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "ddc"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "bitmap"
Load "freetype"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
Load "int10"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "YES"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

# pci info: 0x10DE, 0x2D, 0x40
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "nologo"
BusID "PCI:0:8:0"
EndSection

# pci info: 0x10DE, 0x171, 0x100
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device2"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "nologo"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device3"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "nologo"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "unknown"
ModelName "565"
VertRefresh 60-61
HorizSync 31-60
Option "DPMS" "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor2"
VendorName "unknown"
ModelName "565"
VertRefresh 60-61
HorizSync 31-60
Option "DPMS" "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor3"
VendorName "unknown"
ModelName "565"
VertRefresh 60-61
HorizSync 31-60
Option "DPMS" "on"
EndSection


# res 1024 768
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

# res 1024 768
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen2"
Device "Device2"
Monitor "Monitor2"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen3"
Device "Device3"
Monitor "Monitor3"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
AllowMouseOpenFail
Option "Xinerama" "on"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen1" 0 0
Screen 1 "Screen2" LeftOf "Screen1"
Screen 2 "Screen3" RightOf "Screen1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1"
InputDevice "Mouse1"
EndSection

----- End File -----

Got Linux Mon?
Prasad   2005-10-19 08:14
Hey All!

I'm currently on KDE 3.4.3 - yes brand new :) and have tried desperatly to configure it for Extended Display - meaning:
1) I can drag windows across from one monitor to the other,
2) windows 'know' their home monitor and stick to it on maximize
3) Pop-up's dialog boxes etc come on one screen or the other

Has anyone been able to achieve this ? I'm on Rehat EL - 3.0, KDE 3.4.3 like I said, and compiled natively - with Xinerama options.

I had also read that you are supposed to see a 'Xinerama Enable' button in
Appearance->window behaviour->advanced under KDE - could someone confirm this ?

Thanks,

Prasad
Mark   2006-02-22 02:50
It's 2006 now, can this article be updated?
Keith Mc   2007-11-08 14:01
Hello all,

I have one really simple question before I begin on this endeavor.

Needed info. I am running a dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu linux box. Dual boot? I still game in XP.

This box has a Asus MB with Chrome9 IGP graphics. This chipset does not as of yet support Direct Rendering (DRI module).

If I plug in my old trusted Voodoo3 3000, will I be able to load the DRI module for use with he Voodoo3 card, while leaving it disabled for the onboard IGP.

Any (reasonable and helpful ) suggestions are welcome

Thanks
risyadi_INA   2007-11-22 16:47
I'm quite interest about this topic..
does anyone know linux distro that can fully support multi monitor for supporting server maintenance work? nb:perhaps the licence where GPL..thanks..
for contact..
ID YM:clientictcenter
e-mail:risyadia34@gmail.com or clientictcenter@yahoo.com

risyadi
144ll4ll41-rU?
Forums -> Multiple monitors -> Multi-monitor with Linux

Post Reply