[ale] Seeking horror/success stories & trends for double monitor setup

[Tom Freeman]

JD & Robert

Thank you both. For certain, the link from JD is great, while both 
gentlemen are confirming what I rather suspected - that getting a single 
desktop across two X servers is not much happening (or at least not 
easily).

It rather looks like the best way to make sure there are no dead spaces 
either above or below the second monitor is to have both monitors able to 
run at the same verticle resolution.

Now to hope that the bills don't go crazy on me in the next month or 
two...

Thanks to one and all! I truly do appreciate the use of your bandwidth.

Tom Freeman

On Sun, 10 Mar 2013, JD wrote:

> I use dual monitors driven by a single, $60, nvidia card. Only 1 X/windows
> instance is needed and I'm fairly happen with 1900x1280 and 1900x1080.
>
> Last time I ran multiple X-instances, there was no way to copy/paste using the
> X/buffer between them. That is a non-starter for me.
>
> A blog article about dual monitor setup under nvidia that doesn't use any distro
> specific commands:
> http://blog.jdpfu.com/2010/05/12/ubuntu-10-04-dual-monitor-with-nvidia-driver
> The comments are good too.
>
>
> On 03/09/2013 06:39 PM, Tom Freeman wrote:
>>
>> I have experimented a little bit running double monitor heads off a single
>> graphics card (nvidia), where the displays were not same generation devices. I
>> was working with twinview (think that is the term) under the then current Fedora
>> release (17? sounds right as it was last fall). I got the whole thing working
>> easily enough, but with enough potholes to make life less enchanting. I also got
>> things going on an ASUS laptop, again nvidia adapter, under Ubuntu 12.04 with
>> basically the same experience.
>>
>> My goal is to set up a system with enough screen real estate to do online
>> grading of scanned papers, hold virtual office hours with a video chat system
>> (nobody shows up, but the school expects such and will check) without covering
>> that up so I miss people, and hopefully be able to page back and forth through
>> the key. All of this in a big enough format so old age eyes can see well enough
>> to stay focused on the job and not on the navigation.
>>
>> On the basis of last fall's efforts, I know a few potholes to miss.
>>
>> Big thing for me will probably be a wide horizontal area to park things in and
>> on. I was trying to work in a restricted space (left to right), and there wasn't
>> enough physical space for all the stuff I needed. This I think I can handle...
>>
>> Next biggest thing, for me at least, was that the old monitors I was using did
>> not want to agree on a usuable, common verticle dimenstion, leaving one screen
>> with part of the desktop chopped off. That blank area was a wonderful place to
>> lose things. Of course, if I could get paid to lose things, I'd get filthy rich,
>> so that doesn't help.
>>
>> Because of what I am doing, getting both screens completely color matched isn't
>> that crucial, although the best I achieved was pretty jaring at times. I _will_
>> need to get that challenge sorted better.
>>
>> Now, assuming that the cat's vet bill, the girl friend's birthday bills, fuel
>> prices don't skyrocket, and I can remember the grandtwins birthday stuff without
>> going extremely broke - I have a system which needs full replacement (power
>> supply, motherboard, video card(s), hard disk, and probably a double arm load of
>> USB ports), so I'd like to do it well. I turn to the group to get a  handle on
>> what stuff makes adequate sense for an adjunct instructor. I'm not looking for
>> exact specs, but I am looking for ideas to implement for success and ideas to
>> avoid for success. The time frame is at least a month and a half out - possibly
>> longer.
>>
>> Do I want to run two separate X systems - and if I do is this still a unified
>> desktop? I assume it is possible with two X systems to run both a video card and
>> the built in video chip set, but is this a good way to go to get possibly wildly
>> mismatched monitors to cooperate without blank parts?
>>
>> Is it likely feasable to get mismatched monitors to behave themselves, or is the
>> aggrivation factor such that a purpose bought will save their cost in ulcers &
>> hair pulling?
>>
>> Thanks for the use of your bandwidth
>>
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