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."

Comments

Compiz can do it.

[rqg]

Use compiz and set your shortcuts in Window Management / Put. Just checked moving windows to different outputs (I use 2 displays) and it works.

Multiple desktops

[sexybomber]

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?

Keyboard Shortcut in GNOME

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

To move a window to another monitor (not workspace) in GNOME, press alt+F7, hold shift and the direction you want to move.

Tiling

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Tiling

[plasticsquirrel]

There are a few good tiling window managers that make this a breeze. To some degree it depends on which language you prefer. The following screen shots are from stumpwm, a window manager written entirely in Common Lisp. It has the added benefit of being programmable while it is running, so you can interact with, and test, any new additions or modifications in real time. Anything you want to do like sending windows one place or another, or binding different features to different keys, can be done very easily in a window manager like this. It's very capable out of the box, and it is meant to be extendible arbitrarily due to the powerful programming language it uses.

stumpwm tiling across five monitors at different resolutions

There is also a window manager that has some similar features called xmonad, but it is written in Haskell, so it has a bit of a syntactic learning curve if that matters to you.

xmonad tiling across three monitors

On a side note, it's interesting that the proliferation of Lisp, Haskell, and other powerful functional programming languages has created a demand for a different kind of window manager that is written in, and can be extended with, the language. It's almost as if programmers began to see the limitations of static, C/C++ programmed environments after they started using these languages, and then started to build up new environments more suitable for high-level programming. Is this the beginning of the end for the traditional Unix way of always running back to the C languages?

dwm

[zero-point-infinity]

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.

Re:Another Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard anecdotal stories that Compiz can't cross video cards.

Compiz doesn't really have the problem here. It's the driver's problem. Specifically, on certain Intel video chips, there's a limit to the size of the framebuffer you can have with DRI, which Compiz requires. 2048x2048 was the limit, which is pretty hard to fit two-three monitors into with reasonable resolution, especially with the Widescreen Monitor Proliferation we've seen in the past decade. IIRC, this has been fixed with later drivers ("shatter" fb, which does exactly what it sounds like it does, was the solution I remember hearing about), but it plagued many for a very long time.

multiple monitors with FVWM for a long time

[bigogre]

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

Re:Issues I've had.

[ircmaxell]

You most definitely haven't tried to setup a multiple display environment in any modern Linux...

I've been using linux for the last 10 years at home, finally ditching Windows entirely about 4 years ago (So I'm pretty decent at setting up/working with Linux)... Just 2 days ago, I tried to setup a 3 monitor desktop at work (2 Nvidia cards and 1 Intel card), and gave up after 10 hours of trying to get it work. I got X using them as different sessions (One instance of Gnome per monitor), but couldn't get a unified window manager between them... And I tried 2 different distributions (Ubuntu and Fedora)

One thing Windows does REALLY well right now, is multiple monitors. What you said, is pure anti-MS hatred. There's a lot that I don't think Windows does well, and a lot that I think Linux does REALLY well, but multiple monitors clearly isn't one...

Re:Issues I've had.

[icebike]

Did everybody miss the line in TFA where he said:

    Still stuck on FVWM?

Windows 3.1 had pretty miserable multi screen support too. That's why everyone dumped it like a leaking baby diaper.

Ubuntu, and KDE both handle multiple monitors very well.

Why would the OP mention Windows 7 in the same post where he whines about FVWM?

Level playing field much?

Re:Issues I've had.

[Late Adopter]

This. Welcome to the ugly side of proprietary drivers. nVidia wrote their driver in a really misbehaving way, they circumvent most of the X architecture. Don't expect it to play nice with... anything (does it even support XRANDR?) Long story short, you can use the nVidia card alone, and then use their tools to set up the dual head display on it, or you can use the Intel card alone and expect all your built-in tools to play fine. Never the twain shall meet. The fact that you got even independent X sessions working on it I find nothing short of miraculous (I would be curious to see glxinfo on each display).

Re:Issues I've had.

[mugginz]

If we're talking nVidia hardware, then when you use a combination of nVidia's TwinView with x.orgs' Xinerama for three or more screens, then there are issues with windows maximising across two screens when it should only be on one.

If you're using just Xinerama or Twinview then screen boundaries are respected.

There's a "fake xinerama" patch available though that works around the TwinView with Xinerama problem.