[plug] 2 x dual head :)

[Daniel Foote]

> > Has anyone run/got more than 1 video card running at the same time
> > and if so, was there any major hassels?
> I used to run dual monitors off two graphics cards - there aren't any
> major hassles because the Xorg or XFree86 config takes control. The
> only issue I had is that my bios wouldn't remember that I wanted my
> AGP card to be the primary card, rather than the PCI one, so my
> secondary screen was what I would have to use if I was working in the
> virtual console (i.e. when rebuilding nvidia drivers after an update).

I've had fun with things like that before. It's all part of the fun of
dual monitors. My best setup was when I had a GeForce 2 AGP as
primary, and a TNT2 M64 PCI as secondary. They both acted as expected,
and the same driver in X worked a treat (the binary nVidia). If only
nVidia still supported the old cards with the new drivers then I could
keep doing this - unfortunately, the old drivers don't compile with a
2.6 kernel, and the new drivers don't support the old cards. Catch-22.
(I also need a 2.6 kernel in this machine for other reasons.)

(Oh, and before you suggest it, no, using the binary nvidia module on
the primary card and the nv (open source) driver on the secondary
doesn't work. Otherwise I'd have a dual head setup at home right now.)

> I wasn't running in xineramia (sp?) mode - but had two independent
> desktops. Worked well for me - you just had to get used to loading the
> application in the right screen (I believe there is some work going on
> to allow transfering of windows between desktops.. but is a long way
> off). Xineramia was a pain when I first tried it because my cards
> could support the same resolution so dragging windows around (and
> particularly because the bottom menu bar extended across both screens)
>  would do funny things to my eyes.

Interesting. Back when I first used dual monitors (several years), I
had a 17inch at 1280x768 and a 15inch at 1024x768. After much
fiddling, I ran them quite fine in Xinerama mode...

However, when I did start doing this, support for Xinerama in window
managers was rather scarce. KDE didn't like Xinerama at all, GNOME was
rather tempermental. In then end, XFCE3 was what I ended up with - it
knew about Xinerama and how to correctly handle it, including the
different resolution screens. I've used XFCE since (on any box that I
have).

KDE and GNOME both act quite nicely nowadays with dual monitors and
Xinerama. Which means you can easily drag windows between monitors,
and when you maximise a window, it only maximises to the current
screen. In GNOME, panels are limited to one monitor, but you can
create panels on the second monitor, if you want. It all just "works"
these days.

> But now I'm back to one screen - and I think I get more work done
> because my email isn't always available to read :) But for working
> from a reference in a browser in whatever I'm doing (ie code examples)
> - two screens was great.

I used to use the dual monitors a lot, and still miss it now - most of
the time I'm using laptops that move, or simply don't have a fixed
place that I use a computer that I can set up dual monitors.
Otherwise, I would do so again...

Daniel.