[ale] I need MORE info

[Vernard Martin]

> Can someone tell me if I can add a 2nd video card to my box and make it dual headed? If so, are there docs to walk me through the procedure? Also, I am looking for information about the various distributions. What I specifically need is what services are "on"  by default as well as any "special" services that come with your distro of choice. I already have the info for RH. Please email me direct to keep the list volume low.

Yes, you can add a second video card to your box to make it multi-headed.
There are several caveats:


1) The type of card. Not all video cards can function as the primary or the
secondary card. In general, it is best to use the same type of card as both
the primary and the secondary video. Cards known to work very well with this
are Matrox cards, Number Nine cards, and the special multi-port cards made by
Matrox, STB and a few others.

2) The X server that you use. The current release of XFree86 does not support
multi-head of any sort. You may download and compile the development versin
of XFree86 (version 3.9.X) and it does have some rudimentary support but
that's a topic for another discussion. The two commercial X server that I am
aware of that both contain Multi-head support are the Metro-X server and the
XI Graphics server. The Metro-X server supports only Matrox cards as of last
year. THey may have added more by now and the XI graphics supports the Matrox
cards, the Number Nine cards, STB cards and a few more. In all cases, they
require that all the cards in the machine be the same. I've got 4 Number Nine
video cards up and running right now and it works like a charm.  The 
prelimiary version of XFree86 3.9 will also support cards like the ATI and
the S3 Virge chipsets but there is very little documentation on that.

So in general, I tell folks that yes it will work but you have to have a
commercial X server and you have to have multiple of a supported video card.

Good luck.

--V
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Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable   Vernard Martin (vernard at cc.gatech.edu)
Lightness has a call that's hard to hear  http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~vernard/