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

Justin Goldberg justgold79 at gmail.com
Sun Mar 10 21:15:17 EDT 2013


This info is somewhat dated, but matrox dual display video cards were the
best 2d cards, and their cards had good Linux support. I remember they
ported their power desk utility when nvidia's support on Linux was slim.
On Mar 10, 2013 8:33 PM, "Tom Freeman" <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote:

> 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<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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