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Multiple-Display Power Tools For Linux?
shift writes "I've used multiple monitors for years (currently 3) and find that Linux is lacking in power tools for such setups. Even Windows 7 has added the feature to move a window from screen to screen with keyboard shortcuts. Are any of the major desktop environments adding such features? I'm still stuck on FVWM and have defined functions to swap the contents of screens as well as move windows from screen to screen and so on. But this just seems like such basic functionality people would want in multi-screen setups that I'm surprised I don't find any of these features in our latest desktop environments."
The biggest problem I have with multiple displays is when full screen games don't support it and end up half way off one of the screens.
But that's getting better.
At least I don't have to deal with 3d and video only working on one of the screens. I just use nvidia twinview.
Why not just make each monitor it's own workspace?
Use compiz and set your shortcuts in Window Management / Put. Just checked moving windows to different outputs (I use 2 displays) and it works.
sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Or, if you need a GUI, try xorgconf-gui: http://fosswire.com/post/2007/8/ubuntu-getting-xorgconf-gui/ (could be deprecated).
While we're on the subject, I'm curious to know how well Linux supports three monitor setups. I'm thinking of setting up three monitors on two graphics cards with KDE4. Does anyone have experience with this setup? How well does Compiz work for you? (I've heard anecdotal stories that Compiz can't cross video cards.) Is this something that SaX (or another GUI tool) setup, or will I be hand-editing configuration files?
Configure desktop > Keyboard and Mouse > Keyboard shortcuts > kwin
Select the action you want to do (move, maximize, move 1 desktop to left/right, move to desktop #, etc), and the keyboard combination you want to assign to it.
I rather refute it. I have used linux on the desktop exclusively for years. What problems exactly are you having?
Or are you just trolling?
I've been using multiple screens for years, though mostly under Ubuntu on nVidia cards. I can simply drag windows from one screen to another - not exactly difficult. Maximised windows will even resize themselves as my tow monitors do not have the same resolution.
Given that, if you really waanted keyboard control...
alt-space, down arrow, down arrow (to un-maximise), return
then
alt-space, down arrow, down arrow, down arrow (move)
use arrow keys to move window to wherever on your desktop you want it.
Is this just a problem with FVWM? I know I've been doing it for years in both FreeBSD and Linux. I've done it with FreeBSD running Windowmaker as early as 2002-2003, iirc. And I've done it on Linux with KDE and Gnome.
I've done it with Matrox, ATI, and Nvidia cards. I guess I'm not really sure what the submitter is talking about, because it works for me just as he's asking for without any special hardware.
In fact, in linux running Ubuntu, this was the default configuration as I recall, and I've actually got this working on the Ubuntu 9.10 right here.
i do multimedia work and use a matrox triplehead2go for video and audio editing. i use three screens across the triplehead2go for my timelines and various resource viewing. my graphics card is a dualhead, so i use a fourth monitor for my video display when editing or syncing audio to video. i'm on a mac pro. it was my intention to try working with one of the linux multimedia distros but getting this configuration to work was pretty much impossible for me and help has been pretty much impossible to find in various forums.
i've had to give up on linux for the time being for this kind of work and stick with windoze and apple as they both work with this setup out of the box.
Mod me up (I prefer "informative") but you know it's true
What is this mythical "desktop" of which you speak? Which everyone refers to as the mythical "Holy Grail" of computing, yet can never give a good definition of it? Linux is perfectly fine for the desktop. It's the desktop that isn't ready for Linux.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
This might be overly simplifying the matter, but Ubuntu (GNOME environment) has got multiple workspaces built in, and CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-right_arrow will throw the current window to the next workspace. Couldn't you just assign each workspace to a different monitor and be done with it?
When using Xinerama (which you really ought to be if you want control over your multi-screen setup), many tiling window managers can do all sorts of neat things. I personally use Awesome, although I'm told that xmonad is also good at this.
My Systems
Xmonad seperates the concept of virtual desktops from the displays on which they are put.
so not only can you move a window from one monitor alt-shift-[wer] for moving from monitors 1 2 3 respectivly.
you can put any of the (default 9) virtual desktops on any monitor with alt-[1-9]. The window manager is about as hard to learn to use as VI though it is really really well worth it. expecially when you use it from within gnome so you dont have to loose all the task bar goodness.
Was I the only one that was thinking of Circular Saws, Electric drills with built in LCD displays?
To move a window to another monitor (not workspace) in GNOME, press alt+F7, hold shift and the direction you want to move.
Linux has many fine tiling window managers available, such as Xmonad, AwesomeWM, and StumpWM. These pieces of software deal very well with multi-monitor setups. They have support and expressive keybindings built in. They also automatically manage window size and placement, which is a great boon, especially if you have a lot of screen real estate: no more dragging windows around to see everything!
Truly, tiling window managers are screen-management power tools. I personally use Xmonad on four screens with named dynamic workspaces, which allows me to nicely label each set of windows and layout according to the content of the windows involved.
... Is that you contribute your handy code back in, so that everyone else gets the benefit of it - so give your modifications back to FVWM, that way if you need to install a new machine later, you won't have to repeat the work. Also, the other people using FVWM will have something handy.
As to your question, well - most everyone uses windows managers other than FVWM these days, and most all of those are multiple-desktop awake, as the other posts around here will tell you.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't still contribute back to FVWM though - if you're finding it useful then it does have value.
I'm having problems with 3 monitors.
dwm had its multihead support improved back in July. Since pretty much all of dwm's window management is by keyboard, of course it has keyboard shortcuts for moving windows between monitors. So yeah, this feature exists in even one of the most minimalist window managers out there.
what video card/s, which driver, and please do post your xorg.conf
if using a distro that supports XrandR please give the command you used to format that. Or the results of the logs when trying to config it via some gui tool.
You're looking for another tool to add functionality to your window manager, when in reality that's your problem. Either patch the window manager to add this or switch to a remotely modern (or featured, or whatever) window manager.
I've used KDE for years and it has very advanced keybinds to move windows pretty much anywhere. I can resize and move windows with just my keyboard. It has had this functionality much longer than windows ever had. Your only problem is the window manager. Linux isn't lacking in these power tools, you just aren't using them.
Using Ubuntu Karmic, when I go to work, I plug my laptop into the dock and then boot. I click on nvidia-settings from the menu and then X Server Display Configuration. I click on configuration and set it to twinview. I click apply and voila I have two screens presented. I have never tried three, but as my docking station also a DVI output connection, I would guess and say that it will probably work just as easily.
Rather than post xorg.conf, try renaming it out of the way, and see if you can get any closer to what you want using xrandr plus whichever GUI tool suits your WM and choice of GNOME versus KDE. (krandrtray in my case under Kubuntu, and no, it doesn't work too well - I have written a small xrandr script with the right serious of commands for usual setups I use.)
I say this because recent versions of the X server (past 1.6) do much better at figuring out stuff automatically and xorg overrides tend to just confuse it.
The subject line of this thread is a little harsh, but I agree multimonitor under Linux is not particularly slick - in fact some parts of it seem to be less slick than things were in X11R4. Feel free to disagree, but if it is slick for you, please reply and let us all know what tools we haven't found yet that fixed it for you.
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
FVWM is a windows manager that has been around with few major functional changes for several decades. It's a solid windows manager that is very good at what it does; managing your workspaces and placing the right windows in the right place, directing input to the correct application, etc. In addition it is highly streamlined, with not a lot of excess bells and windows, which makes it highly valuable in a low and limited resource environments. Gnome and KDE are much fatter tool sets providing many of the bells and whistles you seem to crave. In addition FVWM can be used in conjunction with individual tools from these tools sets. Try out Gnome or KDE, either instaed of or along side FVWM and see what you get.
e17 handles it rather brilliantly.
Each screen gets its own set of virtual desktops, and you can drag windows from one screen to another, or set up keyboard shortcuts to do it.
I set up 2 screens side by side, each with a set of virtual desktops that I can switch between by moving the mouse to the right and left edges. If I move the mouse to the bottom edge of the right screen it shows up at the top of the left screen. It takes only a few minutes to get used to.
Of course, you could give up the virtual desktop scrolling and have the more intuitive setup of the mouse hitting the left edge of the right screen and going to the right edge of the left screen.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I personally have found that you can use fluxbox's keys file to bind just about anything, so I have keys bound that launch a script which calls xrandr with the right options and modes for my monitors, works prefectly.
Let's not pretend there was no problem with multiple monitors at times.
To me, Linux has been ready for the desktop for 10 years, and I've been using it almost exclusively. So, that's said.
Though, using dual monitor out of the box has failed me at the first instance a good number of times. And that's far away from perfect. Because I know how to handle Xorg.0.log and xorg.conf; and I know where to post for help; but Aunty Tilly doesn't.
Example 1: 1600x1200 next to 1024x768, Gnome, year:2009. Failed. Took me a few hours until I found a filed bug, that Xorg would not accept a higher resolution of the virtual desktop than 2048x2048. Placing 1600x1200 above 1024x768 finally worked; based on Gnome's GUI. Still not good.
Example 2: Playing with KDE (4.3.2-4), that same thing doesn't. The desktop configuration applet (Computer Administration->Display) simply doesn't allow to un-mirror the two screens; contrary to the 'Display' applet in Gnome. Another need to resort to Google, and a forum. Solution: I need to issue a number of xrandr commands to split the two displays to show separate content. Not good.
Example 3: Having another box with Nvidia-card with TV out. The same KDE (4.3.2-4) applet simply is not aware of the TV output. It shows one standard display, the LCD monitor. Over. Of course, the Nvidia-applet works fine, doing anything with the TV of my liking. But it would require the user to know that she uses a Nvidia card, and that there is another applet that she needs to use. Not good.
The problem, AFAIK, is not that on Linux one couldn't; but one can't, once too often, not simply out of the box.
This person obviously has very little experience with Linux and should probably be posting this to something other than the front page of Slashdot. Can't we get some good questions for once? How about ask Slashdot becomes solely a forum for questions to be posted for interviews with influential people? I'm tired of winblows fanboys asking why they can't get Linux to do something it has supported for years.
Use a better window manager. Nobody else has problem with this because nobody (except you apparently) uses FVWM.
Heh, FVWM... yeah I remember using that like 15 years ago. Trying to be all cool and "Next"-like since this was well before Jobs returned to Apple to create OSX.
http://www.xmonad.org/
This started tickling my mind since I started using my laptops as multi-monitor devices. I haven't done as much looking around as I should, but I've come to the conclusion that not a single OS I've seen was designed or redesigned with multiple monitors in mind.
As an exercise and as a pie-in-the-sky dream I've been trying to work out what dedicated multi-monitor support would look like. I can't work on it because I've been depressed and having trouble concentrating lately, but this is a summation:
There is a fundamental unit of screen space which is treated as a single desktop; you can have more than one of them across your desktops, and you switch between them with modifier keys and the mouse. If you have multiple input sources, you can bind them to either follow the mouse, or lock them to a desktop or monitor. Monitors always stay at maximum resolution (Yes, FUCK YOU, time-it-takes-to-reset-monitors) even if a desktop changes resolution or switches to "fullscreen application" status, because the optimization isn't done on the video output, but on each desktop's framebuffer, and those framebuffers are combined into the display after the fact. (I assume modern video cards aren't set up this way, but a guy can dream.) Naturally, because the desktop framebuffers are simply blitted to the main framebuffer, you can reorganize them as you like, as long as you don't change their dimensions.
What this means is that screen real estate is actually paid attention to by the OS rather than the window manager saying "Oh hey look another monitor. *glitch glitch glitch* Okay now you can use it." It also fits in with other ideas I have (modular computing, etc) in ways that would make sense if you heard both sides of it, but I don't intend to get into detail about.
I anticipate people coming up with reasons why this will never be made, but that's not really the point; I just dream of the future. It's entirely doable, it's just not likely to catch on, especially since nobody knows the details but me, and I'm pretty unreliable about these sorts of things.
I've been using FVWM with multiple monitors for years. xrandr has simplified things considerably. I can drag from one monitor to another with no problem. Below is my current xorg.conf (note that I am running on Fedora 10). You can use a Radeon card by changing the driver to 'radeon'. Use 'lspci' to get the appropriate BusID for your card(s). There may be simpler solutions but this has worked well for me.
And for those saying to use a different window manager please note that FVWM has not stood still but is still true to the name it had when I began using it 15 years ago: the Frugal Virtual Window manager. It is frugal with regards to RAM and CPU use. I also like it because I can edit a file (gasp) to modify the configuration. For old farts like me that's a plus. YMMV.
Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "DVI0"
Option "Enable" "true"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "DVI1"
Option "LeftOf" "DVI0"
Option "Enable" "true"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GT"
Driver "nv"
BusID "PCI:1:00:0"
#Option "Monitor-DVI0" "DVI1"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GT"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Virtual 3840 1200
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
EndSection
xfce, xev, devilspie, xbindkeys, xmodmap, xrandr, vim, man. you can do every crazy thing that comes to mind with this, except window wobbling. i haven't had the need for that, hence no tool for it. reading the man pages won't take more than two hours. you can even use emacs or nano instead of vim with the same great result.
Yes, this man is correct! The sooner people ditch the abomination that is xorg.conf files, the better off we'll all be. For the love of christ people, fuck off the xorg.conf file, it pretty much "just works" these days without one (just make sure HAL is running).
...My favorite is pack left/right/up/down. Does Windows 7 have anything like that?
No, it's not an instant "go to the other screen" button, but it's a bit more generic, and it's never more than two or three taps of it to get to the other screen.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Last place I worked we had two monitors for every developer, and we had about 40 developers. Place I work now has 4 developers, and 3 have 2 monitors and 1 has 3 monitors. The one thing we found in both places is that older Nvidia cards work best. 7800 series, stuff like that. Get the latest cards and you'll pull your hair out trying to get them to work.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
You will notice that the toe jam pickers that claim to have it working will never specify their system and never ever give up an xorg.conf file. They're trolling.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I must not be understanding the problem correctly. So help me out please. Is your set up a) 1 desktop stretched over 3 monitors? Yes? b) You want to move be able to movie, say Firefox, or a xterm, etc. from say monitor 1 to monitor 3 using keyboard shortcuts? c) You think a Linux desktop environment can't handle this currently?
If this is the correct setup you have, then you must not be a KDE user. This is trivial with KDE.
Setting the keybindings is trivial in KDE: KDE menu -> Computer -> System Settings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Settings -> Select Kwin application -> Select Pack windows to the right -> custom -> Click on wrench -> type shortcut. Ditto on Select Pack windows to the left.
I can't tell if you're trying to troll or you're like one of the "Great Old Ones" from H.P. Lovecraft's mythos who's just awakened from your deep slumber in some forgotten forbidding city up in the mountains. FVWM?!?!?! That's like 1994?!?! Not even FVWM95?!?! I had to double check my debian box to see if you could still get fvwm installed on a system.
I mean no disrespect if you're not trolling. I'm just shocked that someone would still be using *and* preferring fvwm in 2009 when I thought the last fvwm user went extinct in 1999 with the arrival of KDE and Gnome on the scene in 1998.
Usually development follows demand. Since the numbers of people wanting to use multiple monitors with the options is quite small it is no shock that little work is done in that area. If it were for a commercial OS such as Windows think of how much each buyer might be asked to pay for such a program.
'xmonad' is a tiling window manager that I found handles multiple screens nicely. Moving windows between monitors etc. are just the basic features.
That's one reason why Linux has not gained widespread acceptance. Because of these people. They and their elitist way of treating other people, are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Just one of them can more than undo the efforts of 10 helpful people.
I wish I know how to contact these people, so I can stick it to them, "Hey shut up already! Either you find a solution to these outstanding problems (which you KNOW is true - or not), or shut the fuck up!"
Sorry for trolling. Please mod this down. But I really need an outlet right now.
Btw, anyone knows how to get Firefox to work fast in Linux (Gnome or whatever)? I find that it works 2-3 times faster in Windows XP on my Eee PC than in Debian LXDE, when having multiple Slashdot tabs open. :( I've searched Google but there's not many practical solutions that I can apply. Ditto for SeaMonkey, IIRC.
FreeBSD 8.0 (7.2 until just recently) on a Mac Mini 2.0 GHz core2 duo with Intel 945 graphics. No xorg.conf is necessary on this machine -- as on most machines now, it has been rendered obsolete by hald and dbus, in Linux as well as *BSD.
And you were saying what now?
Caveat Utilitor
Oh, forgot to mention this, which makes two displays possible from my intel graphics card, and xrandr.
Caveat Utilitor
Xmonad is really fantastic with multihead, moving windows (and whole desktops) between screens is a snap.
Forget something as nice as quick way to switch windows across screens.
Try a multi-screen setup in Linux with 2 seperate single-head cards, especially if they're neither ATI/NVidia.
All but dual-head setups have been 'WontFix' regressions for the last few years.
Unless you want to give up more modern enhancements, you're stuck downgrading...
I have a sager np5950v laptop with two nvidia quadro FX 2500 cards. The laptop display is attached to the second card rather than the first one. Suse's video configuration always tries to put video by default on the first card. I had to screw with bus ID's and xorg.conf in suse 10.0 and 11.1. It never detects it correctly. I also find that every time I do a video driver update I have to copy the old xorg.conf over the one autogenerated by the configuration tools since they don't get it right. I've contributed to parts of the yast2 video stuff before in suse so I can work around the failures but it is annoying and definitely the kind of problem to google for. It's also annoying that the nvidia drivers don't recognize this configuration for SLI though perhaps they have fixed it since I last update drivers.
Indeed. And why is the use of multiple monitors the domain of the desktop? I know many work environments where multiple monitors are used, even when they are all text.
Really people? This is is a question to be taken seriously on /.?
Anyone that knows Linux, knows it does more than one display and has done it for years. I have been using multiples displays for at least 5 years in linux.
In some sense, given the server / terminal roots of linux you could say it did it long long before windows ever did.
Living in Chile
It lets you set a different wall paper for each and really treats them as two monitors. It felt light gnome just treated it as one huge one. I think winblows 7 has a bit better or at least easier support, but KDE has 7 beat.
Elive CD, and if your graphics card GPU is nvidia, its friendly enough. It's got keyboard/binding customizability (if thats a cromulant word), more than your fair share, too. Near-useless keys can do more useful things for you, e.g. I've turned mine into a multimedia keyboard almost. As for swapping windows between workspaces, I simply nail them to a desktop (say Desktop 2 for browsing, Desktop 3 for rss, etc) and two keys side by side that are bound to Switch Desktop Left / Right, so it's more 'Switch to this desktop' instead of swapping contents. And when ecomorph/compiz is on, the cube spins in the correct direction. Devel elive is stable enough for casual everyday use, as long as 'casual' doesn't involve terms like 'breathing apparatus' or 'intensive care'.
E16 has a beautiful pager that provided HIGH QUALITY snapshots of each desktop, in miniature. I have never seen anything like it. You will never get lost. A slew of themes are in efflux.org iirc, but they look kinda dated.
Cue the critics. But it's one of those things, you'll love it or hate it after a few minutes. But I hate FisherPrice candy-colored fruity desktop icons and taskbars more than most people.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I've been waiting for years for someone to get Compositing working on >2 monitors. Unfortunately, all of the solutions mentioned involving Compiz are off-limits to anyone with more than two monitors.
Keyboard shortcuts for moving the window to another screen: System Settings->Keyboard & Mouse->Global Keyboard Shortcuts->Select KWin->type screen in the search field to filter out all the screen shortcuts, including moving a window to the next screen and to an arbitrary screen and moving focus between screens.
KDE also has screen specific wallpaper functionality (which from what I understand Windows 7 does not) and of you can of course have multiple taskbars if you wish.
That is very similar to the current setup on the home machine that I'm typing this on - stock Fedora11 with the driver from Nvidia and set up via the Nvidia tool in about 3 mouse clicks.
Here's how xdpyinfo reports it - notice it's wider than 2048:
screen #0: dimensions: 2880x1200 pixels (671x272 millimeters)
I've set up a few triple head machines as well with both edits to the xorg file and the Nvidia tool which now handles simply just about any configuration their cards are capable of. Also I had multi screen setups wider than 2048 more than five years ago. People have made video walls in X more than a decade ago with a pile of cards and monitors - can you provide a link to this limit many have managed to exceed which managed to stop you? Is it another bit of gnome abandonware or just misunderstanding?
Hence the splash screen with a big "NVIDIA" on it :)
When I give new users these things I show them how to run it so that they can adjust their gamma or whatever else they want to do.
On the other hand the ATI stuff works flawlessly with the gnome tool, but 3D drivers on at least the stuff I have mean that google earth crashes X so I've got Nvidia on all the desktops.
If there's one thing I've wanted for as long as I've used Linux, it's multiple monitor support on the regular, plain text console. I use a dual-head nVidia card, which works fine under X, but console mode has always been a let-down. One monitor always displays a normal console, while the other usually ends up displaying whatever I saw perhaps 10 minutes prior (as if it is showing part of the other monitor's scrollback buffer).
So, each can clearly show unique content in text mode, but does any tool exist that can bring some order to it?
The file is an incredibly good idea. You do not want to have no choice but GUI tools to deal with something where the display is so stuffed that you can only get text. What you want is exactly what is happening - GUI tools that write to a file that anyone that can get to the text can fix whether they are doing it with a GUI tool or a text editor.
Then there's the other huge advantage. I have a dozen twin head machines with similar video cards and similar monitors, and new ones end up being about the same. I only had to tweak the xorg.conf file ONCE (took about a minute) and now I just copy it to each machine. With no portable file and a GUI tool I would have to log onto each machine and click away at a maze of twisty menus and boxes to get a configuration I already have.
Configuration files are the way of saying - "just do what this other machine does and don't ask me to repeat myself" - vastly superior to a GUI micromanagement method. Generating the files is a different story, but the important thing is to be able to do something with them to avoid pointless busy work.
Linux is perfectly fine for the desktop. It's the desktop that isn't ready for Linux.
I would say its the desktop users that are not ready, because the desktop hardware is ready.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
It would be nice to have a concept that I'll call virtual-workspaces with multi-viewport.
If you have two monitors and four workspaces it would be nice to be able to assign each monitor to the workspace of choice.
So you might see the same workspace on the two monitors or workspace 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 or even 1 and 3 on the monitors.
Much like what is possible now, but with more integration between workspaces and monitors.
Right now, I'm starting at two monitors, running Ubuntu. The mouse moves seamlessly between the two. I can drag windows from one to another. I can expand a window (any window, or multiple overlapping windows) to cover both windows at the same time (as I typed this, I dragged one side of this email client across to cover half of the other monitor. I have a TV application (digital tv) running on half of that monitor, and I didn't want to cover it up... but if I kept dragging I would have. I can set each monitor to be independent of the other, or as I have it now I can have one gigantic virtual display (each monitor is set to different resolutions, one monitor is a Syncmaster 172N that only does 1280x1024, the other is a Syncmaster P2270, its resolution is 1920x1080 (and I have it set there). If I have one app stretched across both, Firefox doesn't go to the bottom of the bigger resolution screen. If I dragged to the bottom of the higher resolution screen, some would be cut off from the lower resolution screen. If I transfer a full screen app from one display to another, and it only fills one display, it will automagically resize to full screen on the other display (filling the full display without cutting anything off). Linux has done this for years. Is that what you meant? There are other configurations too (I could have one ginormous display, treated as a single screen across two monitors, but ultimately some data might be lost because of the different physical screen sizes and the way it works now. It could automagically fix things I suppose, but that s one thing it doesn't do now. Everything else it already does. It can do it with multiple video cards too, and I've heard of displays (massive video walls) where thousands of monitors are connected in simultaneous use. Works for me. Does a good job. Crisp, clean, fast. Oh and I use Gnome (why are you using FVWM again?). I've ran KDE (I just prefer Gnome). But I 've also used compiz and compiz fusion (on both) because I was looking for more eye candy than I could get from macs or windows (again, thats just me). Hope this clears a few things up.
Settings -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Global shortcuts -> Kwin
Window to screen \d
Kwin has a lot of shortcuts you can define.
I don't know what the post is all about, but it is defiantly not true.
I've been using FVWM for years too. Recently I switched to Awesome and I really like it. It's on the same level of configurability like FVWM. And it has very good multiscreen support. The only downside is that you have to learn lua to configure (read program it).
He didn't explicitly say he was using the same hardware for each example. Intel cards at one point (still?) have that limitation.
I'm using a pair of triple- and quad-head PCs as we speak. Linux on both: CentOS 5.3 on one, Ubuntu 9.10 on the other. One ran OpenSuSE 10.2 previously. Two cheap dual-head nVidia cards, their binary drivers. Started with the xorg.conf generated from the nVidia tool. Spent several hours the first time trying to get it going years back, but nowadays just spend about 15 minutes setting it up upon install. Works as one large screen in each case. As such, I just drag things around on the (big) desktop to change displays. The doco supplied with the nVidia drivers is reasonably good and all I really used. Runs 3D stuff fine on each. One is KDE, the other GNOME. Both environments seem to have an awareness of the physical displays as well- if I hit maximise, it'll fill the current monitor. I'm not sure that the Linux ecosystem is really lacking such things.
I'm not 100% sure which features are apparently lacking? Is it just keyboard shortcuts to move a window from one physical screen to another? That'd certainly be useful, though I can already do this with a mouse. I know that the keyboard shortcut list is lacking in GNOME, and more options in KDE couldn't hurt either. Perhaps that's what it's about.
Linux since fedora 1, 2 screens always. First using matrox cards now I use Nvidia cards and ATI in the laptop. Nowadays I just use the Nvidia drivers in the Ubuntu restriced repo because it's basically so easy. Once compiz is going and avant is installed the linux desktop is pretty damn...pretty.
I don't understand what this guys problem is?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Stuck of FVWM? STUCK??? FVWM has excellent support for multiple monitors. You just need to know how.
Firstly, FVWM has extended the stnadard X11 position/size spec (width*height+left+right) with an additional marker to indicate the particular screen. Eg: wxh+l+r@X, where X is g for the global screen, p for the primary and so on.
If you want to bind keys to shuffle windows around over multiple monitors you can do something like:
Key F1 A C AnimatedMove 0 0
eg if F1 is presses in Any region with the Control modifier, move the current window to 0,0.
There's als MoveToScreen which can be used to move windows to another screen, etc.
There's settings for resistance for dragging the windows over the edge of screens, preventing overlap over the edge of the screen and so on.
Seriously, they "man fvwm" from an xterm and search for Xinerama. There are hundreds of options.
Finally, if all else fails, and you wish to do some really strange maniuplations, then you can write an FVWM module in a variety of languages to suit your taste.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
He didn't explicitly say he was using the same hardware for each example
So true. Though, I did explicitly say 'on another box'. So, explicitly, I did say ... . Hmm.
I have switched to linux in 2006 partly because of its multi-monitor support in window managers such as e17 (Enlightenment.org), but in the meantime, things got even better:
Since we have xrandr 1.2 it is sufficient to just put Virtual 3520 1200 in your xorg.conf (or whatever the combined resolution of your setup will be) and run a simple xrandr command: .xsession to be run automatically after logging in)
xrandr --output HDMI-2 --mode 1920x1200 --right-of HDMI-1
(You can put it into your
Of course, you can also set up rotation, cloning, different modes, etc. with xrandr. Also try its --auto option which should automatically select the best resolution.
Now combine this with a window manager that supports Xinerama. For tiling window managers, my favorite one is i3 (see http://i3.zekjur.net/ ), which behaves mostly like wmii but adds some nice features and has proper support for xinerama.
If you are more into traditional desktop environments (not tiling), try e17 (see http://www.enlightenment.org/ ). While still not released, it works quite well. There are experimental packages for debian/ubuntu and other distros.
I have (or actually used to have) varying Ubuntu and Kubuntu distros on one of my PCs which has a Matrox P650 dual head graphics card and two monitors attached. None of the mentioned distros has managed to support two monitors - or that Matrox card in general. The only way I managed to get a dual display was using some obscure third party hacked Matrox drivers. And that fun only lasted until the next system update. Couldn't be arsed to do the all the manual tweaking again so I was left with one monitor.
The original post is so not-true, and with the mention of Windows 7 I'm guessing the original poster is actually a Microsoft troll.
systemsettings -> keyboard & mouse -> global keyboard shortcuts -> select kwin
there you can bind whatever shortcuts you want to "Window to screen X".
i don't know about fwm but if you want advanced features you should prolly user a more advanced wm :>
Ubuntu, and KDE both handle multiple monitors very well.
I call bullshit. KDE is a piece of crap when it comes to multi-monitor setup, even the latest 4.3.x series. One of the major issues is that RandR handling in KDE is basically a comment in the monitor setup tool, stating that nobody cares to implement it. So unless you're still running Xinerama, you're out of luck. And as was mentioned above, you can pretty much kiss composite desktops goodbye then. It goes so far that when you setup your monitors with the commandline xrandr tool, the control center will collapse all monitors back into one as soon as you open the monitor settings.
In happier news, Gnome seems to do far better in that regard and in printer handling
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I'm still using fvwm2 myself, but I don't feel "stuck on it." When something better actually comes along, I'll consider switching. KDE and Gnome are too bloated to be considered at all.
It is called grey matter and can be found between ears all over the place, with the exception of American politicians.
You will notice that the toe jam pickers that claim to have it working will never specify their system and never ever give up an xorg.conf file. They're trolling.
The simple answer is most distro's dont use an xorg.conf now it all done automatically for you barf brain it even sort of works on my freakin laptop with it's scabby pox infested ATI M220 POS in it boy wish i could swith the graphics out and put Nvidia in it the machine itself is fine just the F***ING ATI CRAP
This is a slightly different problem, but I think is related. It might end up being useful to shift. I (and a lot of other people) use synergy2 (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) to share 1 keyboard and mouse over multiple monitors on multiple computers. This ends up being a lot less tricky than multi-desktop setups with its own limitations (you can't drag windows from desktop to desktop, you need multiple pcs, etc).
I find it works great, as I can have Linux, XP, and OSX all working simultaneously, each with their own monitor (or monitors) and never have to switch keyboard or mouse. Thank goodness cut and paste works between desktops! Now I'm wondering if there is a solution like this which can employ X and ssh tunneling to allow one to drag windows from Linux desktop to Linux desktop. That would be pretty awesome.
I don't think you should be marked Troll. In fact, *I* should be marked Troll.
http://awesome.naquadah.org/
No mouse needed: everything can be performed with keyboard;
Just. Perfect.
As were on the subject (slightly off topic here, bear with me): I've been trying to get my 5,1 simple aluminium macbook (with ubuntu and nvidia drivers) to recognize that my second screen is actually 1600x1200 and it won't - no matter what I do - give me any more than 1280x1024. It's either that, or black, or vertical resonating stripes. Mac OS, installed on the same machine, using the same dual-monitor set-up, has no problems whatsoever to do this properly, and it is driving me insane. Am I perchance in the presence of some Nvidia people who could help me out with this ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Managers (all the ones I have had in recent years) are not ready for Linux on my desktop. Of course even when you are supporting nothing but Linux servers in your role, they insist you will not be able to connect to the fucking Exchange server. I have had jobs where the employer did not use Exchange and I was able to use Linux on my desktop. This keeps happening to me everywhere I work. I get handed a new Dell laptop with an incomplete or broken install of WinXP on it and am told to download putty. My last boss wanted me to test VMware Linux machines on this Dell XP box. It was fun watching the thing crash on a daily basis. Usually it happened at the worst possible moment. Honestly, I don't see how a real Linux person can work with that setup. I sure can't. Last month I bought myself a MacBook Pro so the boss' fear of me having Exchange issues went away.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
As I'm using it right now. A dual-head nVidia and a dual-head ATI. But now that I read that article, my guess is that Win7 is knocking one or both of the cards down into some kind of legacy mode.
My favorite which does its job just perfectly is the Awesome Window Manager.
http://awesome.naquadah.org/
Cardinal solution:
1) Use nvidia.
2) Install Ubuntu.
3) Try Compiz.
I use 4 virtual dualmonitor desktops this way. The whole user experience will blow you away.
PS: disable the wobbly effect, its useless and makes throwing windows difficult.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Yes, this solution is fine (and easy!) for someone who wants to shell out the $$$ for a multi-headed graphics card (or even say the new Matrox 8-screen card) -- but say one wants to live with older hardware. Say one has a MB with an i915 chip for "standard" VGA and one has added a "Radeon HD 3450" card which is relatively a cheap 2 head graphics card -- one has the capability of configuring 2 additional (total of 3) monitors -- but can one get X to talk to both hardware drivers (the Intel and the ATI)? Not in my experience (and I have tried).
If X indeed supports this (multiple screens across multiple hardware (driver) types) then I simply have not figured out the required tricks. If it doesn't support this it is a deficiency in the X capabilities and should be fixed.
The version of X I am currently running is 1.7.1 and I'm about to upgrade to 1.7.3.
Side note: The most annoying thing IMO is that given the cooling capacity requirements of most current medium-to-high-end video cards is that they take up 2-slots. Slots I could devote to other uses (ATI TV receivers -> MythTV recorders for example). The standard "one size fits all" releases of hardware to the masses will never be right for my interests (I generally view unused slots as opportunities to make my computer more interesting [think very old car/engine tinkerer]) -- so I will want all of the slots available -- and the MB manufacturers have generally not changed the general design layout in ~15 years to deal with this.
My desktop is frozen at Debian Etch.
I have a triple head setup with three graphics cards. It has been working well for me for years, though it was a bit tricky to set up. About halfway through the Lenny release cycle, an upgrade hosed my multi head setup.
The culprit was xrandr replacing xinerama. The new code can handle multiple outputs on a single card but cannot yet use more than a single card.
The xrandr code is a definite improvement. No more screwing around with xorg.conf is great. The ability to change screen arrangements and resolutions dynamically is a major win for laptop users. Dropping multiple card support however, is a major regression.
At this point it is looking like I will need new hardware by the time this is fixed. I suppose I can throw a bunch of money at a graphics card with three or more outputs. I got the three cards I'm using now at swap meet prices, I don't relish the thought of shelling out big bucks for a fancy card, I'm just looking at a bunch of xterms anyway.
For now, I'm stuck with an increasingly obsolescent operating system because the X developers didn't thing it was a big deal to remove functionality.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.
Every time I read an article like this I keep hoping that at least one of the linked-to window managers will prove to do what I've been after for years on a dual-monitor setup.
1) Each monitor as a separate (logical, if not physical) display
2) Ability to drag windows between the two displays. Moving 'atomically' via a shortcut is OK too, no need to have windows span the displays.
3) *One* 'Pager' (the thing that manages what windows are on what virtual desktops) for both/all screens. No need to show the same virtual desktop on both displays at the same time (I assume this wouldn't be possible with a few things like accelerated video anyway).
It looks like awesome, and others, may well give me #2 in my list (and indeed it seems I could probably get fvwm2 to do it with some config twiddling), but does anything have #3 ? If I have a 3x2 set of virtual desktops I want either display to be able to look at any arbitrary one of those virtual desktops. Sure, knowing what I know now I could swap windows between displays, and thus Pagers, as needed, but that's still more hassle than simply ALT+arrow'ing around a single Pager on either display.
Disclaimer: I've not yet tried the WMs mentioned in this article, I'll be taking a look at awesome and a few others if necessary shortly.
I see it as a combination; mostly the users aren't ready, but the manufacturers aren't ready to commit to supporting it yet either (except for Dell, and even that seems half-hearted).
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
He was talking about the software virtual desktop in X and not what goes into the video memory in the card.
So you should have written something other than: "Xorg would not accept a higher resolution of the virtual desktop than 2048x2048". On it's own that statement is false and that's all you gave us.
I cannot read your mind, only what is on the page.
When I had a five year old video card that couldn't run two screens at 1920 wide and can only do that on one and 1500 on the other (note this still adds up to more than 2048) I didn't blame X, I checked the specs on the video card and then got some hardware capable of doing the job.
With respect, the nvidia driver needs to be told the stuff in xorg.conf if it's anything out of the usual so removing those bits "managed by the Nvidia driver" will mean that the nvidia driver doesn't use those options anymore and you lose your settings.
You don't even need an xorg.conf file if nothing unusual is going on. Once you have a second screen that could be left, right, above, below, or way over there the computer has to be told and that's just how it keeps track.
I don't know much about it personally, but I saw sawfish in action and found it pretty impressive under the command of a developer I know.
Sawfish is Lisp-powered, so not for the faint of heart and great for defining your own shortcuts.
The virtual desktop in X is up to the driver to implement, it may or may not be software. In the case of the drivers for the intel 915/945 chips, there's a hardware limitation that prevents the virtual screen size from being greater than 2048x2048 (try it yourself). If I'm reading the bug reports right, newer drivers may work around this.
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2009-July/046683.html
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/383345
The above poster made a blanket statement (which was wrong) and we are just looking for excuses in limits in specific hardware and blaming X for it. Somewhat pointless and misleading really.
I'm running three monitors on Windows XP
Yes, But it's not possible in Vista any more, due to the new Windows Display Driver Model.
WDDM 1.1 is supposed to fix that in Windows 7, so it might be soon possible to do it again, as long as all drivers for the cards in a multiple cards&screens setup support this standard.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Eh, he was listing his bad experiences, which had a legitimate explanation that wasn't his fault. I think that's fair. He wasn't saying "X can't do this", but rather "for my particular unspecified case, I couldn't get X to do this".
Does that mean his experiences are typical and indicative of serious problems in X? No, of course not. But he has a point that it's not foolproof and not quite ready for Aunt Tillie. There's still improvements to be made in HAL, RANDR, etc, to get all this working without manual tweaks to xorg.conf. We're on the right road but not done yet.
I have a setup using a NVidia TwinView graphics card together with a Matrox DualHead2Go splitter. This allows me to combine three UXGA monitors as a single Display without any further configuration in X-Org (except the twin-View part). The windowmanager just sees one big Display (fully accelerated), and you can do everything with ist that you can do on a single display, in the same way. That said, there is an ATI project called Eyefinity in the making that will support up to six monitors natvely, however that is not yet available.
For multimon on the fly you really need xrandr 1.2 though. In an interview a while back an NVIDIA dev mentioned they hadn't had the time to add xrandr 1.2+ support but it looks like xrandr 1.2 will be arriving to the NVIDIA binary drivers soon.
Thanks for all the truly retarded responses, it was very enlightening. If you are still dragging windows from screen to screen, or using keyboard shortcuts to "grab" the window the move it incrementally over to the other screen then you are living in the dark ages of multi-screen. I guess I can look into tiling window managers or stick with my FVWM, where with 3 monitors and hot keys I can:
- swap the contents of 2 arbitrary screens
- shift the contents of screens to the right or left (rotates around)
- move the currently focused window to another screen with just a keystroke where it ends up on another screen in the same screen-relative geometry and warps the mouse over
- move the current window into the center of my middle display with keyboard shortcuts then have it pop back to its original location
The premise is wrong. I have Win7 and a NVIDIA card and I can't easily switch resolutions or any other display settings with shortcuts without checking stupid boxes in stupid dialog boxes. Where is xrandr / nvidia-settings for windows?
I notice that nearly everyone who's posted that has something working well has an nvidia or intel card. I've had a terrible time with my laptop's ATI card. Sometimes it doesn't support different resolutions on each monitor. Sometimes it refuses to use the built-in monitor management tool. Sometimes the ATI tool fails. Through the driver updates over the space of only 2 months, the driver has caused as many problems as it has fixed. My laptop screen still fails in portrait mode half the time, even though appropriate xrandr support was supposedly added a version or two back. With the open-source driver, at least everything works, but I have no 3d acceleration, and my battery life is cut in half. Unfortunately, I didn't have a choice with my graphics card. I've seen multi-monitor setups on linux work brilliantly out-of-the-box, but there are so many times when they fail miserably to do even half the stuff you want them to in the way you expect. Closed-source graphics drivers are honestly half the problem, though, it seems and unless some open-source driver devs get supernatural coding powers, that's not gonna change.