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Multiple Monitors for Linux Laptops?
dybvandal writes "Multi monitoring support for laptops is far is from perfect in the windows world even though it enhances productivty considerably and letting that laptop TFT go to waste while using an external monitor is also a shame. I found no support in Win2K and only limited support under WinXP (laptop tft is forced to be primary). Win9x actually does multi monitoring perfectly but it can hardly be considered a productive environment. But since my company is making the switch to Linux soon I was hoping that this episode would soon end. But according to the xfree page multi monitor support is still fairly limited in general and with no comments on laptops. There seem to be commercial alternatives (xig, metro-X) but I would like to hear about some first hand success stories before spending the cash on such a solution."
Nvidia's linux drivers have support for twinview in them: their multimonitor technology. I'm somewhat sure that their mobile GPUs have TwinView enabled.
The linux drivers support using an external monitor or television as your second display.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
ok, ok, ok, i know this is not what you asked, but macOSX does support out of the box, multiple monitors. BUT the hardware must also. for instance, the iBook does not allow you to have separate video between your vga and lcd. Powerbooks do. i'm on a Powerbook G3 and if i walk over to my desk and plug in my 17" monitor, i can dual monitor it. (this has been a hallmark of mac powerbooks since the powerbook 520/540)
i wish the iBook would also, but as a "consumer" line apple didnt think the extra monitor needed to be anything other than mirrored.
(hmm, i wonder if i jack in my tv via the svideo and my monitor if i can have THREE monitors... where's a long rca cord...)
oh um, i dunno if the various PPCLinuxes support dual monitor mode. i would imagine they do.
It depends on the xinerama support for the chipset. For my ATI Rage128 Mobility, there is no support, though I think that other chipsets fare better. Check www.xfree86.org and http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Xinerama-HOWTO.html.
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Um, that's not a moderation. It's part of the subject...
win2k won't do it, except in _very_ rare cases, winxp will though, its a limitation of the cards and win2k's interface to them. the 9x and xp drivers do extra jiggity things relating to BIOS'es, etc, but under win2k such jiggity things are disallowed.
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windows 98, me, 2000 and XP all have great multiple monitor support when using more than one video card or using a video card with multi-head outputs (ATI and Matrox make good ones).
XFree86's multihead support works well, but it not easy to setup and not quite as nice to use. And X doesn't support multi-head in the nice friendly same screen (ie: windows can be dragged between screens) format without applications popping up thinking that its one large display so that the show up across multiple heads or with dialog boxed centered on the break in your monitors.
Have anyone looked at OS X's multiple display features? OS 9 was great and I would hate to think Apple would drop the ball after getting it right, better than any othe implementation I've seen.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Or, as I have done in the past, into the PCI slot in the docking station.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Never say impossible! I currently have a laptop on my desk with two video cards. It was the first thing I just had to try when I got my docking station and saw the free pci slots just sitting there.
Incorrect - it's dependant on the window manager. KDE supports proper dialogue centering, maximizes windows to just the current screen, launches windows on the head that the mouse pointer is on without going into other screens, and also allows you to snap to the edge of the screen, and if you drag a bit more, it slides it over to the other screen (all of these fatures are, of course, available to non-KDE apps when launched under KDE). In addition, most KDE apps that run in full screen (like image viewers) will use the center head, with only video (in 2.x, it's dependant on libmpeg) having some issues (libmpeg has problems with getting the aspect ratio when called inside KDE - I use MPlayer anyway).
It's a big reason why I use KDE - just about everything is very multihead aware. I filed a whole slew of bug reports when 2.x first came out, and they've all been pretty much addressed. At the recent KDE Coding conference there was apparantly a whole bunch of work done to add even more multihead specific features as well as careful testing of KDE 3.0 beta on a multihead system.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
thanks, that's good to know. i'm looking forward to kde 3.0's release. I will play with Xinerama mode again once it is out.
Though still not sure Xinerama can do what i want. I have a 1600x1200 crt with a 1024x768 lcd beside it. I don't want stupid "scroll the viewing window at the edge of the screen" behavior on the lcd.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien