New KScreen Supplies Some Magic For Multi-Monitor Linux Set-Ups

An anonymous reader points out developer Àlex Fiestas's work on multiple monitor configuration for Linux. In particular, the screen manager that he and Dan Vrátil are working on — KScreen — gives KDE users a utility "making the configuration of monitors either auto-magical or super simple." This is one thing that's certainly gotten much better in recent years for Linux GUI users in general, but the video in the linked post makes me a little envious — another good reason to swap desktops once in a while.

Comments

Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad that the Linux desktop has this feature after being on AppleOS and Windows for only about ten years.

The set-up is also super-simple:
Finally if you want to get this working:

1.Compile libkscreen
2.Compile kscreen
3.qdbus org.kde.kded /kded org.kde.kded.unloadModule randrmonitor
4.qdbus org.kde.kded /kded org.kde.kded.setModuleAutoloading randrmonitor false
5.qdbus org.kde.kded /kded org.kde.kded.loadModule kscreen

This is great for users who want to get started with Linux. It will also end their Linux experience after 10 minutes.

Yes, Linux wins another accolade in being user-friendly.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Until it's put into a distro.

Jesus, stop acting like a jackass.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep Jesus out of this, some of us value our Christian beliefs, please don't insult him.

Will the distribution also include a time machine so that this feature is added in Mandrake ten years ago? Along with 16-color EGA support and Adlib sound capabilities?

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[V!NCENT]

So does Apple, before creating a distribution of Darwin and shipping it, compiled and configured, through the internet.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure apple already did this;)

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is only labeled as flame bait because the flaming arrow of truth has struck too close to the heart of the Linux desktop zealots.
For all of their hatred of Apple and Windows - they must admit that this HAS been available in those systems for a long long time

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

In before 'Jesus titty fucking Christ'.

Oops.

Assuming Jesus did exist and was an observant Jew of about the year 30AD. Assuming for the sake of discussion that he was married to Mary Magdaline, who had a large rack. Would he indeed have been 'Jesus titty fucking Christ'.

Discuss.

I'll start. Yes he would have been, but would have finished his work in the vagina. Pearl necklaces being counter to old testament law.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

tasteless but funny and clever. i lol'd.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[jedidiah]

> I'm glad that the Linux desktop has this feature after being on AppleOS and Windows for only about ten years.

+...with loads of caveats.

And yet, this is still a relatively obscure feature. So the idea that your typical user will be "running off into the night" after 10 minutes is rather unwarranted.

Most people will be shocked that you can do this sort of thing with any OS.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Osgeld]

oh its been much longer than 10 years, 98 maybe 95 could handle it with a simple trip to the display properties, and I have an 1986 macSE that uses its internal monitor and a full page radius display at the same time in os6 with a little utility

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Osgeld]

"Most people will be shocked that you can do this sort of thing with any OS"
not to anyone that uses a laptop and a monitor. this is a pretty standard issue thing now

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, lay off of Jesus. He's my best gardener, and he can put up drywall like the best of 'em.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[HJED]

It is one of the features that I constantly have to wrestle with on Linux (which I use as my main OS), there is currently no real multi-screen support in a major distro and what support there is breaks regularly during updates. (This includes things like full screen flash, changing settings without rebooting, etc). I hope this will work with nvidia drivers, but from past experience I doubt it.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

...some of us value our Christian beliefs...

That's OK, the rest of us don't. In fact, some of us value other fictional characters names more than that.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[mattkrea]

I'm pretty sure those that have been using *nix all this time would have dropped it if they cared that much. For many of us the value of *nix is in a GUI-less environment and seeing articles like this is just evidence of how far the open environment has come. I still use Windows on my primary desktop and am forced to use a Macbook for work but every server running every one of my products/projects is some flavor of Linux because of the stability. Now that's without a doubt a more important "feature" than some new way to manage your desktop environment, IMO.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[bejiitas_wrath]

Works pretty well with Xfce4 on Linux Mint 14. But I used the AMD Catalyst Control Centre to setup my dual screens. This does need to be built into the distributions though with some sort of utility.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[cynyr]

dynamictwinview (nvidia) and XFCE4 here as well. Works out of the box, as did my old laptop with intel graphics and randr.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[dargaud]

Works pretty well on nVidia cards, even different models on different types of bus (PCI + PciEx) simultaneously.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[nobodie]

At work the people with multiple monitors do not actually use the extra monitor for anything other than personal email, shopping, youtube fun and lolcats. It is a status symbol and seems somehow connected to the group that comes to work at 10 in the morning and works "late" (which is until 7) unlike the dweebs and proles (who come to work at 8 or 8:30 and stay until 5 or 5:30- notice the people who "work late" work the same amount of hours but claim moral victory because they "work late every day"). Believe it or not, most people believe this crap. I was offered a position working as one of the "work late" crowd, but it didn't work out. I could do all the work in about 4 hours which, since I came in at 7, meant that I was finished with my day about the same time they were finishing their first coffee and beginning their day. Obviously it couldn't last.

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[Osgeld]

sounds like you have some issues at work, my work is totally different, everyone monitors are filled with stuff related to the task at hand, and the people who work late often show up at 8am and work well into the night, and sometimes morning

Re:Yes, this is amazing

[nobodie]

no issues, just typical lazy people. If you work someplace where people are working more than 8 hours a day, then you are being mistreated and underpaid. A strike is what is called for, because your company is mistreating you by not providing adequate personnel to do the work. If you or others are spending your personal time (anything over 8 hours a day) on company work, then you are being cheated out of your LIFE.

Look man/woman /person, I had my own companies and worked my butt of 14 or 16 hours a day to run multiple companies and make mad cash. Now I am 55+ and can barely work 6 or 8 hours a day without running down in a few weeks. My vacation started back at the beginning of December and I am just now getting my stregth reserves back to where I can wake up and feel good after 9 or ten hours of sleep.

It wasn't worth it. All that money has little value when you feel like crap after an easy day's work, and you still want to work but can barely get up in the morning after going to bed at 9 the night before. Seriously, find another job, that's what I did and it is why I am still alive now.

About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorely missing for oh so many years. Still, gratz and thank you.

WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only been able to do this with Windows OS since 1998.

Kudos KDE team! :D

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

Actually, no, you could not.

You didn't (and still don't) even have a separation between window manager and applications, so hung application produces pretty patterns on the screen when you try to drag your window, if you can even drag it at all. You didn't (and still don't) have usable multiple-desktop or multiple-viewports support, so changes in resolution only affect one giant constantly-displayed area, with all windows mapped to it. You can't allocate a monitor connected to one host to become a part of the environment for other hosts, or combine multiple hosts with their monitors to show a single desktop, with applications spanning all of them.

So you are comparing the ability to change the resolution on the fly without restarting applications (what Windows had before Linux got it in 2001, and became part of mainstream in 2007) against actual usable management of resolutions on multiple screens, some virtual, some networked. And no, your stupid Terminal Services don't count.

Re:WOW!!!

[mystikkman]

so hung application produces pretty patterns on the screen when you try to drag your window, if you can even drag it at all.

This shows that people like you have last used Windows back in the XP or even ME days. Get with the times instead of wallowing in outdated criticisms.

You can't allocate a monitor connected to one host to become a part of the environment for other hosts, or combine multiple hosts with their monitors to show a single desktop, with applications spanning all of them.

.. management of resolutions on multiple screens, some virtual, some networked...

This is soooooo useful to so many desktop users compared to the use case of extending desktop to another monitor on the desk without fiddling with multiple config files and utilities. *snicker*

And no, your stupid Terminal Services don't count.

Yes, lets discount actual working remote desktop over even dialup,and lets trumpet outdated technology requiring a LAN.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

This shows that people like you have last used Windows back in the XP or even ME days. Get with the times instead of wallowing in outdated criticisms.

Now the effect is masked by the speed of processors and programmers carefully starting tens of threads for their UI, but it's still there (window won't even move if anything gets blocked). Meanwhile, X applications may run on some remote m68k, and won't slow down the rest of UI.

This is soooooo useful to so many desktop users

Workstations users need that all the time, they just can't get it from Windows.

compared to the use case of extending desktop to another monitor on the desk without fiddling with multiple config files and utilities. *snicker*

Do you even understand what this is about? All this IS IMPLEMENTED in nice UI, the article is about a new KDE utility for it.

Re:WOW!!!

[Zapotek]

Not to bait you but you didn't actually debunk his post, are there any Win users here that use multiple monitors to give us a comparison?

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

Not to bait you but you didn't actually debunk his post

I have explained that his comparison is invalid because he based it on one least-relevant feature.

are there any Win users here that use multiple monitors to give us a comparison?

You mean, gamers who have one box running fullscreen game on three screens (three is important because otherwise his gun's sight will be between screen edges)? And office dwellers who have Word on one screen and Excel on another because they have no scrollable/switchable viewports? With the way how Windows users use multiple monitors, no. Windows may be ready for desktop, but it's not ready for any serious use as a workstation.

Re:WOW!!!

[TemporalBeing]

Not to bait you but you didn't actually debunk his post, are there any Win users here that use multiple monitors to give us a comparison?

No longer a Windows user; but Windows does not have any where near the same level of functionality for multi-monitor support the Linux does.
Here's a little glimpse:

- Windows allows you to either clone the monitors (e.g. presentation mode) or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors; but applications can only min/max on one monitor; you can stretch an application to cross both monitors, but the max function provided by Windows won't do that.
- Windows leaves much of the multi-monitor support to the drivers. if you have several display adapters they better work well together at the driver level or you won't get multi-monitor. At work we tried adding a second monitor to a Windows system (2008 Server I think) but the driver for the second card would only work with other drivers that had WDM support; which the main card did not.
- As of WinXP SP3 Windows does provide a nice built-in utility for manipulating mutli-monitor support when it is available, but it's very limited. Usually you'll get more functionality out of the driver tools (e.g. nVidia's ControlPanel) that will let you do a bit more. In no cases do any of those tools provide the flexibility of what Linux provides.

This is true even of Windows 7; and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to - those from what I have seen, Windows 8 will put the Metro interface on one monitor and the Desktop interface on a second monitor by default; so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor. Might be the only way to use Windows 8 without getting rid of Metro.

Re:WOW!!!

[yathaid]

I work as a software developer for a small e-commerce firm, named after a large river. The most common use case for me, is to have my laptop docked to a larger screen, where I have some applications running on my laptop screen, this could be a browser window on a laptop screen, e-mail client etc., and have my ssh windows open on the bigger screen, since code is more important to me, it gets the larger screen real estate. Linux, (maybe not Unity) but KDE, SUCKS MY BALLS for this. This is the most common use case for EVERYONE working in my company, and Linux is completely unusable for this. 1. lightdm, the display manager, will not understand the desktop monitor settings. 2. The extended desktop setting is broken. On the OPEN SOURCE, Intel driver. Just in case someone started bitching about drivers. 3. If you force it into your required setting, with the bigger screen as your main display, and the smaller screen as extended to it's side, the brilliance that Linux is, will show a blank screen if you aren't connected. Basically, if you are connected things can be OK for one big screen, if you are not, it will still try to push display to the bigger screen, even when you ARE NOT connected. I have many more grievances against extended displays on Linux, but I will stop here. Basically, Linux on multi monitor set ups, is a non-starter. Note : I might have used Linux as a stand-in for KDE, so this might just be a rant about KDE, but I tried XFCE on my home laptop. The out-of-box experience is so 90's that it beggars belief. Win7, it pains me to say, is smooth as butter on this. Every imaginable configuration, is done as intuitively as possible. The Win+P shortcut brings up an easy mode switching popup. The advanced configuration screen under Screen Resolution, is super easy to figure out as well. Also, the grand-grand-parent poster, is absolutely wrong about the Window Manger being linked with the application in Windows. From Vista, Windows has had a compositing manager, no dirty rectangles, tearing the screen because of one misbehaving application. Yes, I understand the reasons for why Linux/KDE isn't able to do this, lack of vertical integration, no driver support, blah blah, but really, how can I evangelize about Linux, if it cannot do something as simple as extending displays correctly and easily?

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

A few points:

1. I've never gotten KDE to maximize a window across two screens without manually resizing it
2. I've gotten plenty of flexibility from the Windows 7 multi display feature, including my current setup:

Screen 1, rotated 90 degrees to portrait mode, on the left
Screen 2, landscape mode, on the right, but aligned so the top of it is 150px lower than the top of screen 1 (since the stand doesn't go that high).

Is that kind of setup possible in Linux? I haven't had the occasion to try it but would love to know.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Workstations users need that all the time, they just can't get it from Windows.

Given that you have _several_ X Servers for Windows (some of them free), I can't see why not. What I can see is Linux distros like Ubuntu or Mint with completely broken XDMCP funcionality, and its a trending issue - that alone somewhat reflects the usage that kind of feature has nowadays. And the problems usually don't end with XDMCP.

Workstations users need that all the time, they just can't get it from Windows.

I don't know what a "workstation user" is. I know a lot of "workstation users" that only use Microsoft Office and Outlook. I also know a lot of them that use Adobe Photoshop extensively, so it appears that you have problems distinguishing the forest from the trees. I myself am a "workstation user", and use both Windows and X server on Windows, and have no need whatsoever in executing remote GUI applications over X.

Do you even understand what this is about? All this IS IMPLEMENTED in nice UI, the article is about a new KDE utility for it.

And the point is that this is pretty much a standard feature of other operating systems, such as Windows. Without requiring you to use a specific WM/DE or installing a shitton of libs. It is 10 years late, and as the video shows, many laptops even assume the SO has that capability to the point of having a marked shortcut for it.

And there is nothing OSS/free in the *nix world vaguely near Terminal Services. Internally, the desktop compositing is somewhat similar to X, but works way better over slow links, with the plus of actual audio support, resource sharing (disks and printers), and a _usable_ clipboard (still waiting on that on *nix). The case usage of TS is somewhat different from remote GUI applications, but from what I see on a daily basis, way more useful.

Re:WOW!!!

[s.petry]

Yes, lets discount actual working remote desktop over even dialup,and lets trumpet outdated technology requiring a LAN

What the fuck? Come on now, X windows was built for remote connections. That was the reason scaling the resolution was difficult to do, because it changes the whole underlying infrastructure of X.

Terminal services basically stole every concept that X had since.. like.. the 1970s. X worked extremely well over dial up and LAN, and still does today. It's still more secure than MS products, less prone to MiM attacks, and has way more capabilities. Such as displaying an application or a full desktop, where TS is desktop only.

In fact, to go further.. MS had to buy a lot of technology from Citrix to accomplish anything at all with TS.

If you want to tell people how bad X is, at least do 10 minutes of research before doing so. KDE has been superior to Windows since version 3 in every sense (assuming you were using current hardware). Windows 7 in fact was full of gadget ideas stolen from KDE and MacOS (though the selection was and is laughable and it's poorly implemented).

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

And office dwellers who have Word on one screen and Excel on another because they have no scrollable/switchable viewports?

Viewports makes sense for some applications and for low-res displays. I actually hate them, and toggling an app on a different viewport will toggle the whole viewport. On high-res monitors, you may find yourself dragging windows on a small applet on a corner of a screen.
On the other hand, I get more usable screen with Windows than I'd get with X. The difference is noticeable on high-res screens, and translates to more lines of code at once on each screen. Scalable font rendering is usually crappy in X, and most of the times the widgets and dialogs look like something drawn by a kid (there are some exceptions, but even with tabbed windowmanagers or minimal windowmanagers like blackbox you will have the font problem). At least with Windows, application-specific modal dialogs don't popup on the wrong screen or under some other window (again) on the wrong screen.

but it's not ready for any serious use as a workstation.

I guess your notion of workstation is a machine you use. Different people have different needs.

Since apparently for you multiple monitors on Windows is for office and for games because it lacks virtual desktops, there you go: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

No longer a Windows user; but Windows does not have any where near the same level of functionality for multi-monitor support the Linux does.

Are you comparing Windows XP with a latest linux distro? Because I had problems for _years_ with X/Xorg and multiple monitors.

Windows allows you to either clone the monitors (e.g. presentation mode) or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors; but applications can only min/max on one monitor; you can stretch an application to cross both monitors, but the max function provided by Windows won't do that.

None of the applications I use make sense being spread across monitors horizontally, maximized, so never needed it. Can you give me an example of such application?

Windows system (2008 Server I think)

Pick a 2009 Linux distro, install it on a laptop, and then span the desktop to another monitor, with different resolutions. Now try see a fullscreen movie on the 2nd monitor, and tell me about it. Or boot up the SO, plug an external video device, and see how the resolution detection works.

Re:WOW!!!

[vux984]

No longer a Windows user...

Ah well, then I guess you are well qualified to comment then.

or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors

That's over simplifying a lot.

The monitors can be set up more or less independently. They don't need to have the same resolution, and they can be positioned arbitrarily relative to each other.

The task bar doesn't get stretched out.
There are hotkeys for moving windows between monitors.
The desktop background isn't stretched out either.
Its hardly simply a really big desktop with a few "viewports" onto it.

but applications can only min/max on one monitor

That's a feature not a bug. The desirability of the maximize button maximizing an application across multiple monitors of often different resolutions and arbitrary relative positions is pretty much nil. But if you want to stretch it across multiple monitors you can.

Windows leaves much of the multi-monitor support to the drivers.

Windows does most of the main multi-monitor functions just fine on its own. A few more esoteric functions, like being able to define rotations for the screens independently is typically offered by the drivers, and is not natively offered by windows. (And rotations might even be offered in windows 8... I'm not sure about that one offhand; although I do recall seeing something about setting the orientation.)

As of WinXP SP3 Windows does provide a nice built-in utility for manipulating mutli-monitor support when it is available...

So, uh, as of a version that is pretty much EOL, and is the oldest version you would really expect to see people actually using it already had a useful tool for managing multiple monitors? Is that the last time you used windows?

and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to

Windows 8 adds some really nice multiple monitor improvements actually... in particular you can show taskbars on multiple displays - with a variety of options such as the ability to have an application icon appear just on the taskbar on the screen its on, or on the screen its on, plus the primary display, or on all taskbars on all displays.

Additionally you can open the start start screen on any display, and you can set independent backgrounds.

so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor

In other words, with dual monitors you can run metro and desktop alongside eachother if you like.
Or classic on both monitors.
Or metro on both monitors.
Or with 3 monitors...
Or Metro on 2 monitors, classic on 1 monitor.
Or classic on 2 monitors, metro on 1.
Or metro on all 3.
Or Classic on all 3 monitor. ...

Sad thing is I'm not even really a microsoft cheerleader; but the amount of ignorant nonsense i read about windows on slashdot forces me to defend them.

Re:WOW!!!

[s.petry]

The most common use case for me, is to have my laptop docked to a larger screen, where I have some applications running on my laptop screen, this could be a browser window on a laptop screen, e-mail client etc., and have my ssh windows open on the bigger screen, since code is more important to me, it gets the larger screen real estate. Linux, (maybe not Unity) but KDE, SUCKS MY BALLS for this

Funny that I do this same exact operation on my Linux laptop all the time with KDE. I have used this same feature on KDE since.. version 3.5 at least. It worked fine with an ATI Mobile chip, the intel chip, and now the NVidia chip. In Windows I have to use the cards driver set to make the same thing work in every case (Windows won't do this properly natively, or magically loses screen placement every few hours after coming out of a screen saver). In KDE, the control panel is all I needed with any chip set. It works every time, and remembers my configuration between boots every time. Windows on the other hand has poor behavioral issues. Un-docking for example sometimes causes a full reset. Sometimes it keeps the 2nd display when it's not attached and I can't see anything.

Re:WOW!!!

[armanox]

Here you go for TS replacement (if you require such): http://www.nomachine.com/

Protocol also has an OSS implementation, I believe it's called FreeNX.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

X applications may run on some remote m68k, and won't slow down the rest of UI.

... which is a feature so obscure that it is going away even in Linux. Wayland does away with it.

Only 0.01% cares about that, and it isn't worth the complexity it imposes.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be dark in there, what with being stuck so far up your own bum you can't see the sun.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

Wayland is one of the doomed projects that were supposed to replace X, but amounted to nothing. This shit is going on for as long as X11 existed.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

XDMCP and remote X are disabled on Ubuntu because for home users they are nothing but a potential security hole. Enabling them is trivial for those who need them.

X servers for Windows don't run Windows applications, and mostly don't run X applications, either, due to extreme ineficciency, outdated implementations, and nonexistent hardware support. Among other things, they don't support dynamic resolution changes and compositing. Apparently idiots like you believe that all X implementations are as crappy as those.

Microsoft Office is an application for making pretty documents with incoherent formatting, and using a pseudo-database with calculations, that grew into something that has more in common with absurdist art than any productive activity. People who only use it, would be better off with a tablet-keyboard combination -- too bad, one that Microsoft tried to sell is total crap, at large extent because their tablet-style UI is almost as bad on tablets as it is on desktops. If you judge workstations use by the type of users who waste computers' capability the most, you you are bound to end up with idiotic preferences -- oh wait, this is what Windows mlti-screen support is!

The rest of your response is plain false.

Re:WOW!!!

[TemporalBeing]

No longer a Windows user; but Windows does not have any where near the same level of functionality for multi-monitor support the Linux does.

Are you comparing Windows XP with a latest linux distro? Because I had problems for _years_ with X/Xorg and multiple monitors.

Not simply XP, but Vista and 7 as well. I've used all three; but I primarily use Linux. (My wife has Vista on her laptop, and I get to dabble with Win7 from time to time at work. But 90+% of my time is under KDE on Linux - Kubuntu for the time being, and Gentoo.)

For a long time you had to specifically setup your X configuration file to get it right. It was a pain to get right, but it did work very well once configured. Since Xorg 1.5 you don't have to specifically craft the X configuration file any longer, but it depends on your DE (e.g. GNOME, KDE, etc) to get the dynamic configuration working right. KDE 4.5 and later could do it; but it's only really matured in that manner with 4.8. I can't speak to GNOME as I don't touch it.

Windows allows you to either clone the monitors (e.g. presentation mode) or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors; but applications can only min/max on one monitor; you can stretch an application to cross both monitors, but the max function provided by Windows won't do that.

None of the applications I use make sense being spread across monitors horizontally, maximized, so never needed it. Can you give me an example of such application?

Some users like to do it for video editing, or multi-screen displays. I haven't done it so I'm not familiar with the use-case so much, but I do know you can do it under Linux.

Windows system (2008 Server I think)

Pick a 2009 Linux distro, install it on a laptop, and then span the desktop to another monitor, with different resolutions. Now try see a fullscreen movie on the 2nd monitor, and tell me about it. Or boot up the SO, plug an external video device, and see how the resolution detection works.

I do it with both Gentoo and Kubuntu, no X configuration file now - though I use to on the Gentoo system. You can use Xinerama to have a seamless display between several monitors, or separate desktops on each, or one desktop with different configurations for each. Right now, I've got my Lenovo T61p running KDE 4.9 with one wallpaper on the laptop display and another on a 22" LCD monitor. Works great.

Now, I'm not saying KDE manages it perfectly yet - there's still a few bugs to work out. But the flexibility is far greater than what Windows provides.

Re:WOW!!!

[BitZtream]

And it isn't even anywhere close to RDP.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

So far, the only usable implementations of virtual desktops are in X, and everything else is total crap. Yes, even OSX. Obviously, a Windows user wouldn't know a case when virtual desktop are useful, from his own ass.

Re:WOW!!!

[BitZtream]

- Windows allows you to either clone the monitors (e.g. presentation mode) or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors; but applications can only min/max on one monitor; you can stretch an application to cross both monitors, but the max function provided by Windows won't do that.

The maximize button maximizes to current screen, doesn't stop you from actually making the window span all by resizing it yourself.

- Windows leaves much of the multi-monitor support to the drivers. if you have several display adapters they better work well together at the driver level or you won't get multi-monitor. At work we tried adding a second monitor to a Windows system (2008 Server I think) but the driver for the second card would only work with other drivers that had WDM support; which the main card did not.

So you're argument is that you have a shitty card without drivers and you're complaining that it doesn't work? Seriously? Could you even use that card in Linux? I mean if it doesn't have a Windows driver what is the chance you're using anything other than VESA in Linux?

- As of WinXP SP3 Windows does provide a nice built-in utility for manipulating mutli-monitor support when it is available, but it's very limited. Usually you'll get more functionality out of the driver tools (e.g. nVidia's ControlPanel) that will let you do a bit more. In no cases do any of those tools provide the flexibility of what Linux provides.

Its always proper to compare a 4.5 year old release of Windows to a modern Linux distro isn't it ...

This is true even of Windows 7; and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to - those from what I have seen, Windows 8 will put the Metro interface on one monitor and the Desktop interface on a second monitor by default; so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor. Might be the only way to use Windows 8 without getting rid of Metro.

Then you need to learn how to use the control panel. Span the desktop properly and Metro will span with it. There pretty much isn't any truthful comparison in your entire post.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Given output names of PORTRAIT and LANDSCAPE, and given native rotated resolutions of 1080x1920 and 1920x1080 respectively;

xrandr --output PORTRAIT --auto --rotate right --primary --pos 0x0 --output LANDSCAPE --auto --right-of PORTRAIT --pos 1080x150

Probably not 100% correct but more or less. Install arandr to do it in a GUI.

Re:WOW!!!

[TemporalBeing]

No longer a Windows user...

Ah well, then I guess you are well qualified to comment then.

I wouldn't qualify myself as a Windows user any more as I used Linux all the time. That said, I still keep up with Windows (to a degree) as I still write software for it and such. (Mostly write the software using Qt, then compile under Windows to deliver; but I also have a number of Windows applications - Win32/MFC - that I help maintain as well.) So yes, having worked with Windows XP, Vista, Win7, Server 2003/2008, etc - I'd say I'm still qualified to answer.

or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors

That's over simplifying a lot.

The monitors can be set up more or less independently. They don't need to have the same resolution, and they can be positioned arbitrarily relative to each other.

The task bar doesn't get stretched out. There are hotkeys for moving windows between monitors. The desktop background isn't stretched out either. Its hardly simply a really big desktop with a few "viewports" onto it.

but applications can only min/max on one monitor

That's a feature not a bug. The desirability of the maximize button maximizing an application across multiple monitors of often different resolutions and arbitrary relative positions is pretty much nil. But if you want to stretch it across multiple monitors you can.

As I fully noted. But depending on what you want to do, that can very well be a bug. With Linux you have to configure X such that it makes the monitors one big desktop area; there is no option on Windows to do so save a few very special (and expensive) graphics cards with drivers that do it to make the marketeers happy.

Windows leaves much of the multi-monitor support to the drivers.

Windows does most of the main multi-monitor functions just fine on its own. A few more esoteric functions, like being able to define rotations for the screens independently is typically offered by the drivers, and is not natively offered by windows. (And rotations might even be offered in windows 8... I'm not sure about that one offhand; although I do recall seeing something about setting the orientation.)

Windows doesn't do much of it on its own. It pushes it to the graphics driver; but they've done a lot better job of hiding that via the Display Properties since Windows XP SP3.

As of WinXP SP3 Windows does provide a nice built-in utility for manipulating mutli-monitor support when it is available...

So, uh, as of a version that is pretty much EOL, and is the oldest version you would really expect to see people actually using it already had a useful tool for managing multiple monitors? Is that the last time you used windows?

No, and you seem to be missing quite a bit of what I said based on your comments. Yes you've added some more details, but largely missed what I stated.

and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to

Windows 8 adds some really nice multiple monitor improvements actually... in particular you can show taskbars on multiple displays - with a variety of options such as the ability to have an application icon appear just on the taskbar on the screen its on, or on the screen its on, plus the primary display, or on all taskbars on all displays.

Additionally you can open the start start screen on any display, and you can set independent backgrounds.

Good to hear. They're catching up to the Unix world with much of that. KDE 3 (EOL'd several years ago) had multiple "taskbars" on each display years (10+?) ago; but Windows just gets it with Windows 8!

so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor

In other words, with dual monitors you can run metro and

Re:WOW!!!

[BitZtream]

Come on now, X windows was built for remote connections.

Yet, storing the backing store is optional and has to be supported properly on both ends ... and still doesn't work half the time. And it has no sort of built in caching of rendered data to limit redraws.

1970s eh? You realize it didn't come about until the mid 80s, right? And that the way computers work today as far as graphical capabilities is nothing like displaying in the 70s OR 80s right?

In fact, to go further.. MS had to buy a lot of technology from Citrix to accomplish anything at all with TS.

Or rather MS and Citrix partnered together to make WinFrame work ... and then later MS got tired of it costing 9 billion dollars and threw it in to silence fanboys like yourself. Citrix didn't create it on their own, Microsoft helped them with access to the innards of Windows, and that is exactly why it functions much like the X protocol, with the exception of being from a more recent decade. But yes, MS did buy a license to include s trimmed down version of it in their OS.

If you want to tell people how bad X is, at least do 10 minutes of research before doing so.

I used to write apps against libX in the 90s and 00s, what are your credentials?

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Obviously, a Windows user wouldn't know a case when virtual desktop are useful, from his own ass.

Obviously, any narrow-minded individual has problems understanding a reality where people have different needs, so instead resorts to cheap sleazy insult. I could point out that none of what you actually said is true (some graphics adapters DO support scrollable viewports, Windows does provide switchable viewports, not everyone uses what you use, there is a shit ton of problems/issues with multi-monitor support in X, and some of them are more than a decade old, etc etc etc), but it would be pointless. A narrow-minded person has no mental space available for a different perspective.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

What you have described, is absolutely trivial on Linux, and was for a really, really long time (randr 1.2 configures arbitrary screen offsets at runtime). People didn't use it before because stupid "widescreen" ratios kept vertical display too narrow for document editing and viewing until recently. *I* don't use it because my standard development layout involves two large text editor windows side by side for cross-referencing, it takes almost whole screen, so everything else goes on another monitor or viewports, therefore everything stays in landscape.

Re:WOW!!!

[armanox]

And what does RDP provide that NX does not?

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

XDMCP and remote X are disabled on Ubuntu because for home users they are nothing but a potential security hole. Enabling them is trivial for those who need them.

Take the time you spend trying to insult people from inside your bubble to actually read what you're replying to. Did I complain about being disabled? No, I complain about being broken.

X servers for Windows don't run Windows applications, and mostly don't run X applications, either, due to extreme ineficciency, outdated implementations, and nonexistent hardware support.

Actually, an X Server runs no applications at all - it is the client that runs the applications.

Apparently idiots like you believe that all X implementations are as crappy as those.

Apparently you must be using a X Server implementation different from anyone else, since according to you it runs your applications instead of just rendering them. Good to know. You must be one of those guys for which everyone is an idiot, right? Or are you just compensating your own social akwardness?

Microsoft Office is an application for making pretty documents with incoherent formatting, and using a pseudo-database with calculations, that grew into something that has more in common with absurdist art than any productive activity.

So, in other words, working with simple tools like Microsoft Office seems to be beyond your habilities. Most of what you said could be said about any program. Really.
X/Xorg: is an application for making pretty documents with incoherent formatting
MySQL: a pseudo-database with calculations
DIA: absurdist art

People who only use it, would be better off with a tablet-keyboard combination -- too bad, one that Microsoft tried to sell is total crap, at large extent because their tablet-style UI is almost as bad on tablets as it is on desktops

And this is relevant to the current topic how? But do tell me about all those X/Xorg tablets, inquiring minds want to know...

If you judge workstations use by the type of users who waste computers' capability the most, you you are bound to end up with idiotic preferences -- oh wait, this is what Windows mlti-screen support is!

I'm shure your CPU is taxed at 99%, and your work is more relevant like no other. You could die tomorrow and probably no one would give half a shit about your work, Machines are tools, not the endgame. Really, get a life.

The rest of your response is plain false.

If you say so...

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, gamers who have one box running fullscreen game on three screens (three is important because otherwise his gun's sight will be between screen edges)? And office dwellers who have Word on one screen and Excel on another because they have no scrollable/switchable viewports? With the way how Windows users use multiple monitors, no. Windows may be ready for desktop, but it's not ready for any serious use as a workstation.

Fuck! I've done both of those things in Ubuntu today...

It wasn't a FPS game, though the reason for my 3 monitors is the same... stupid black plastic line straight down the middle when I only use 2 monitors for League of Legends.
And it was OpenOffice, not MS when I was working on a sample resume for a friend, and put my ppt project on another monitor while I did it.

Am I lame, too?

Will you still love me if I told you I only had irc running on another viewport?

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

NX is (mostly) a commercial product. I've used both the free version and the OSS implementation (FreeNX). It is similar o TS (cant remember if implemented audio), but a bit slower, and AFAIK no printer forwarding support. The FreeNX I tried had some issues (FreeBSD ports at the time had only a 32 bit version, dont know if meanwhile changed), and still lacks central management of sessions, capture/sharing of sessions and decent speed on local networks.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

so hung application produces pretty patterns on the screen when you try to drag your window, if you can even drag it at all.

This shows that people like you have last used Windows back in the XP or even ME days. Get with the times instead of wallowing in outdated criticisms.

Now the effect is masked by the speed of processors and programmers carefully starting tens of threads for their UI, but it's still there (window won't even move if anything gets blocked). Meanwhile, X applications may run on some remote m68k, and won't slow down the rest of UI.

How can you be modded Insightful and GP troll, when you are simply WRONG. Windows XP had the ability to discover hung GUIs and "ghosted" the windows so you could move or minimize them.
Since Vista, the new DWM is a compositing window manager that has NONE of the problems you describe. You are just a Windows hater and don't know what you are talking about.

Slashdot moderation at its worst.

Re:WOW!!!

[vux984]

I'd say I'm still qualified to answer.

I'd say characterizing yourself as a "no longer a windows user" is somewhat inaccurate, wouldn't you?

But depending on what you want to do, that can very well be a bug.

If you REALLY want to do that, you can buy a 3rd party solution.

With Linux you have to configure X such that it makes the monitors one big desktop area; there is no option on Windows to do so save a few very special (and expensive) graphics cards with drivers that do it to make the marketeers happy.

What exactly is your complaint?

That windows doesn't have a feature that almost nobody wants that can be added via a 3rd party if you really do want it?

Really? That's the complaint here?

Good to hear. They're catching up to the Unix world with much of that. KDE 3 (EOL'd several years ago) had multiple "taskbars" on each display years (10+?) ago; but Windows just gets it with Windows 8!

Meanwhile setting up multiple monitors on KDE3 in the first was a huge pain in the ass while I ran plug-and-play multiple monitors with windows 10+ years ago. I'm so glad Linux is finally just getting "plug-and-play" multi-monitor support that actually works. (well, we'll see if it actually just plug-n-play works... once distros start bundling it.) ;)

Microsoft has done a bit to help cleanup the APIs for applications, and make a nicer settings for it all they still leave 90% of the grunt work to the graphics drivers; where X handles it in the X Server - above the graphics drivers, but below the Display Manager.

This seems like architectural nit-picking to me. So what if the grunt work is in the drivers?

Still, Windows is far behind in features for multi-monitor support compared to the rest of the world.

And yet I'd rather set up multiple monitors on Windows than on linux because despite it being allegedly "far behind" its much easier to do, it's not a big mess if you remove or swap in a different monitor without reconfiguring the system first -- it just works.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

People didn't use it before because stupid "widescreen" ratios kept vertical display too narrow for document editing and viewing until recently.

Disagree. 1920x1200 monitors used to be quite common, even my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop had one. Finding decent 1920x1200 monitors nowadays is relatively difficult due to the aforementioned stupid widescreen ratios. My standard setups at home and work are pairs of Dell 1920x1200 monitors one rotated right, one rotated left (thanks to a stand hack so the speaker bars stay on the outside).

Re:WOW!!!

[armanox]

Audio is there (especially in the upcoming version). I can't speak on printer forwarding, I don't use a printer but maybe twice a year. Beyond that it's more then met my needs. (Actually, X over SSH usually meets my needs, but MS's equivalent is Remote App, not the full RDS. And I'm not paying for RDS licensing for my house (and my work would probably pick NX over RDS too. They don't consider my time as a valid cost factor in implementing anything).

Re:WOW!!!

[cynyr]

Microsoft Office is an application for making pretty documents with incoherent formatting, and using a pseudo-database with calculations, that grew into something that has more in common with absurdist art than any productive activity. People who only use it, would be better off with a tablet-keyboard combination -- too bad, one that Microsoft tried to sell is total crap, at large extent because their tablet-style UI is almost as bad on tablets as it is on desktops. If you judge workstations use by the type of users who waste computers' capability the most, you you are bound to end up with idiotic preferences -- oh wait, this is what Windows mlti-screen support is!

Preface: I'm a mechanical engineer who makes custom designs of a "standard" product for customers all day. Getting correct answers back quickly is a big part of getting sales.

Okay, seeing as I use Microsoft Excel pretty heavily every day at work I'd like to point out the reason it gets so much use in the engineering world is that it really is the lowest common denominator. No one that isn't fresh out of school (i.e. less than 3-4 years on the job) has even touched VB.Net or any other programming language. I have some python scripts running around to do a handful of things for me, but any tool that would like to send to others is done in excel. Not to mention that trying to add support for calculations via DLL in something like MsSql or postgresql would be a huge pain and take probably an hour of setup when all I want to do is bang out a quick set of repeat calcs on 100 lines of input. Despite having pywin installed, and a fully working python setup on my windows (XP, I have to get a new computer to get a new OS.) machine, Excel is still my goto app for getting things done quickly. It lets me build decent looking tables with a hand full of keystrokes and clicks (thanks MS for letting me pin macros). It lets me do some basic sed/cut/grep sorts of operations on my input data. It lets me run the same calc on each row/column of input in a few keystrokes. There are times I push my input data through gvim, or a one-off python script, and I have even been known to push data back to my home computers via ssh to do some more advanced stuff, but again, it all ends up in excel.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

I admit I work a lot with BSD systems, and FreeNX/NX support of those operating systems is can be truthfuly described as "shitty". And while the latest versions of TS are packed with new features, we're talking about late nineties technology. NX may do today most of what TS did 12 years ago. Oddly enough, Citrix, one of the companies behind TS technology, is now fully vested in Linux tech, and they have a product that provides transparent virtualization for applications - a bit like the X over SSH, but with virtualized hosts.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

Take the time you spend trying to insult people from inside your bubble to actually read what you're replying to. Did I complain about being disabled? No, I complain about being broken.

That's the false part -- it works just fine when enabled. Though usually there is no good reason to enable it, as remote X works with either ssh tunneling (for very lazy people or insecure networks) or preloaded cookie files (for X servers attached to session after authentication). However when XDMCP is needed, it works.

Actually, an X Server runs no applications at all - it is the client that runs the applications.

It runs display procedures and input for them, you extraordinary pedant.

Apparently you must be using a X Server implementation different from anyone else, since according to you it runs your applications instead of just rendering them.

VNC renders. X server draws (though now mostly by copying bitmaps around).

Good to know. You must be one of those guys for which everyone is an idiot, right? Or are you just compensating your own social akwardness?

No, it's just you are an idiot and I am not.

So, in other words, working with simple tools like Microsoft Office seems to be beyond your habilities. Most of what you said could be said about any program. Really.

No, Microsoft Office just happens to be a convoluted application made for a very simple purpose -- this is why it does not matter for it, how bad is the display subsystem and desktop environment. Just wait, and you will see that it will be the only application that perfectly fits into the abomination that is Metro/Modern.

X/Xorg: is an application for making pretty documents with incoherent formatting

X is a general purpose display server, it works well with all applications, including "Office" ones of all kinds.

MySQL: a pseudo-database with calculations

MySQL is a general-purpose SQL server, as opposed to Excel, the bastard child of Visicalc and Access.

DIA: absurdist art

Most things created in diagram editors are, indeed, in absurdist category, however it's not the fault of software. Well, at some extent it is, because it comes with UML library.

And this is relevant to the current topic how?

It's relevant because Microsoft Office should fit into a tablet, so it works on hopelessly crippled desktop.

But do tell me about all those X/Xorg tablets, inquiring minds want to know...

My Nokia N900 phone has a desktop based on a full-featured X server. It works great (including scaled live view of running applications) despite very limited CPU performance.
So does Plasma Active on all current implementations.

I'm shure your CPU is taxed at 99%, and your work is more relevant like no other.

Only when I run timing optimization of my FPGA projects. However it's more important that I can see all information I have to see when I develop software and run it on complex hardware configuration, with all kinds of monitoring and logging that I have to analyze to make any sense of it.

You could die tomorrow and probably no one would give half a shit about your work, Machines are tools, not the endgame. Really, get a life.

Do you realize that everything -- absolutely everything that you have ever used -- exists because people like myself at some point made critically important design decision, before worthless scum like yourself became able to "design" things by copy/pasting their work?

There are many differences between people like me and people like you, but one of the most fundamental is the reason why people like me really, really care about their tools. I can't use Windows not because Windows is inefficient or ug

Re:WOW!!!

[armanox]

Yes they do (I think it's XenApp and XenDesktop, depending on which features you want). It works very well. Our client uses it - but you still have to pay MS licensing costs (which are insane).

Re:WOW!!!

[cynyr]

I'll bite... I use windows XP dual monitors at work and Gentoo Linux dual monitors at home. Both setups are nvidia video cards.

Work: I use the nvidia config utility to give me viewports. These are not as nice as the ones in XFCE4 mainly as they have been grafted in, and many windows apps don't like them, they do work. Multi-monitors are setup using windows builtin tools for that. Main screen on the left, secondary on the right. This means I need yet another third party program to mangle backgrounds so that they display correctly. (hopefully this has been fixed in win 7). I also used tweakUI from MS to setup my mouse to be X style with autoraise. This also only mostly works. Excel is my biggest grievance, I cannot have one workbook open on each monitor and retain DDE(dynamic data exchange, paste values, formats, etc) between workbooks.

Home: I have enabled dynamictwinview and used nvidias tool to set up the dual monitors. Main on the left secondary on the right. The background image just works. Full screen on a single monitor(mplayer, vlc, wine games, etc) all just work. XFCE4 provides great support for viewports. With the newer nvidia drivers, I'm not sure I even need the nvidia tools, and could just go back to using xrandr. In general everything works well on linux.

Re:WOW!!!

[cynyr]

Also should have added, that in both cases both monitors have different resolutions, which makes windows even harder to use well. I'd still like a third monitor. (hopefully when I get a new work laptop).

Re:WOW!!!

[cynyr]

None of the applications I use make sense being spread across monitors horizontally, maximized, so never needed it. Can you give me an example of such application?

A wide table in Excel/OO.calc, CAD. I agree with you though. Generally it's not needed.

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

Since Vista, the new DWM is a compositing window manager that has NONE of the problems you describe.

No, it's actually a very thick composite manager, not a window manager like ones in X. X window manager performs manipulations on windows to configure the parameters that determine how they are displayed by X server, and processes all user's input when user intends to manipulate windows, completely bypassing applications themselves. At the same time composite manager (that may or may not be the same program) implements hardware-accelerated compositing. This is also why window manager can work with or without compositing (though some eye-candy-heavy window managers such as Compiz would rather run another window manager instead of implementing non-composite mode). As usual, Windows developers jumbled together huge pieces of the system, and implemented them in a way that completely depends on hardware feature that is optional everywhere else, performs tiny fraction of functionality, and allows no configuration or extensibility. Good job, Redmond!

Re:WOW!!!

[Alex Belits]

Obviously, any narrow-minded individual has problems understanding a reality where people have different needs, so instead resorts to cheap sleazy insult.

Fish may have legitimate reason for not wanting bicycle suitable for humans, however I would rather not use a bicycle based on the requirements of a fish.

I could point out that none of what you actually said is true (some graphics adapters DO support scrollable viewports,

All of them do, in X.

Windows does provide switchable viewports,

Inaccessible to the user without additional software, nearly unusable with said software, and in conflict with all other possible desktop enhancements due to lacl of design. How typically Windows-like.

not everyone uses what you use,

It does not matter. I am an engineer, and my configuration of a desktop is conducive to complex engineering/software development work, therefore my requirements are legitimate, and Windows' inability to satisfy them is a flaw. Just because there are plenty of other engineers who have never seen anything other than Windows, does not mean that they do not suffer and do inferior job, or live shorter, more miserable lives, because of the deficiency of the environment forced on them.

there is a shit ton of problems/issues with multi-monitor support in X

Maybe in those X servers that run on Windows. X on Linux works just fine.

and some of them are more than a decade old, etc etc etc), but it would be pointless.

Some of software that I use is older than I am, and most of it is older than you are. It works just fine because it was not crap to begin with. Unrelated to this, I have no idea, what the fuck do you mean -- Xorg, the only modern X server, is being actively developed.

A narrow-minded person has no mental space available for a different perspective.

Burning hatred toward militant idiots is not narrow-mindedness.

Re:WOW!!!

[Microlith]

Wayland is one of the doomed projects that were supposed to replace X, but amounted to nothing

Are you from the future or something, cause Wayland just hit 1.0 for the protocol and isn't done yet. I suspect, rather, that you're just bashing Wayland because there's something you don't like about it but can't actually explain what it is.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

That's the false part -- it works just fine when enabled.

It doesn't. That's what broken means. And yes, you can "unbreak it" by installing another DM. Out of the box, its mostly broken.

It runs display procedures and input for them, you extraordinary pedant.

So, it displays the output, does not actually run the program. What I find extraordinary is that the quality of your insults improve when you're caught dead wrong. Not bad.

No, it's just you are an idiot and I am not.

Maybe you're delusional, but hey I'm not a pediatrician, It may happen you're just passing gas.

My Nokia N900 phone has a desktop based on a full-featured X server. It works great (including scaled live view of running applications) despite very limited CPU performance. So does Plasma Active on all current implementations.

Actually, that is a pretty cool device. But hardly a tablet.

Do you realize that everything -- absolutely everything that you have ever used -- exists because people like myself at some point made critically important design decision, before worthless scum like yourself became able to "design" things by copy/pasting their work?

It is odd how you defend yourself as a good decision maker, and then go and make out-of-the-blue assumptions about other people. But your god complex regarding circuit design is amusing. Don't get me wrong - I do believe you're very good at what you do, but I actually find fascinating your need to insult others and the insecurity that drives it. Because I can actually do most of what you do (plus apparently a ton of other things that are completely foreign to you), without feeling superior about it.

It seems that at some point you forgot you didn't invent semiconductors, microelectronics, or discovered basic electric properties of different materials. You didn't created or improved the fab process. You didn't invent routing algorithms. Your designs always borrow from someone else, no matter how original they are. Negating that is just... stupid. From what I've interacted with you (this is not our first discussion :D), I'd never leave a critical design decision in your hands.

There are many differences between people like me and people like you, but one of the most fundamental is the reason why people like me really, really care about their tools. I can't use Windows not because Windows is inefficient or ugly, I can't use it because my work is my life, and my tools are parts of my thought process.

Lets cut the insulting crap. I (unfortunely) now use Linux everyday, been using BSD more than a decade, and for desktop work, I actually prefer Windows. If I was doing embedded systems design/development, I'd probably use something else. I'm not (currently), and most of the "workstation users" aren't either. I do understand what you're saying and it is a fair point - one of the reasons I use Windows so much is because I feel confortable with it. You feel the oposite, that's fair.

Allowing something like Windows into my work would contaminate my mind, turn me into a person too stupid to do things I am capable of doing.

You think too much of yourself. Its not a bad thing, but too much of it isn't usually good either. There are thousands and thousands of people capable of doing what you do, and probably some of them already do, and use Windows as a desktop. If you think people are intelectually inferior to you just because they don't choose the same stuff you do, you're a negation of yourself - too bright to understand how dumb you are.

Oh, and it also has some really crappy desktop, and made by the second most immoral entiry in the history of mankind after Inquisition.

I couldn't care less about morality. And there is no morality in technology - only money.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Fish may have legitimate reason for not wanting bicycle suitable for humans, however I would rather not use a bicycle based on the requirements of a fish.

Because you're not a fish. Your flaw is assuming you're superior, not different.

All of them do, in X.

For someone who works with logic everyday, you seem to have difficulty following simple true/false sentences. I never stated the contrary regarding X.

Inaccessible to the user without additional software, nearly unusable with said software, and in conflict with all other possible desktop enhancements due to lacl of design. How typically Windows-like.

In linux, every software is additional, so in that regard is the same. There is a long distance between "cannot" and "its not good enough" - for a guy who proclaims himself an engineer, you seem to lack precision in your statements.

It does not matter. I am an engineer, and my configuration of a desktop is conducive to complex engineering/software development work, therefore my requirements are legitimate, and Windows' inability to satisfy them is a flaw. Just because there are plenty of other engineers who have never seen anything other than Windows, does not mean that they do not suffer and do inferior job, or live shorter, more miserable lives, because of the deficiency of the environment forced on them.

You're probably the most desktop-happy person I've ever come across. I know, you can't even conceive the idea that other people - equally bright or brighter than you - opt for different things, or develop in different environment, Just because you probably work surrounded by monkeys, it is naive to assume everyone that doesn't agree with you is one.

Maybe in those X servers that run on Windows. X on Linux works just fine.

Shure, if you like to have an app on one screen and click on modal windows for that app on another screen. I'm shure its a feature (specially when its not the top window, and the modal dialog assumes the Z-index of the parent window on a different monitor), not a bug.

Some of software that I use is older than I am, and most of it is older than you are.

I've actually maintained software older than me. Unfortunely, software is a bit like cheap wine - excluding some very rare exceptions, it does go bad with age.

Burning hatred toward militant idiots is not narrow-mindedness.

You must love your mirror.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are quite possibly the biggest, most egotistical ass I've ever seen on slashdot.

And that's saying a lot.

Jesus christ.

Re:WOW!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true even of Windows 7; and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to - those from what I have seen, Windows 8 will put the Metro interface on one monitor and the Desktop interface on a second monitor by default; so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor. Might be the only way to use Windows 8 without getting rid of Metro.

Not sure what you mean by lack of difference in Win8. There is very significantly improved multimonitor support in Windows 8: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-windows-8-for-multiple-monitors.aspx

Re:WOW!!!

[dbIII]

there is a shit ton of problems/issues with multi-monitor support in X

Tell me a few. It's a good time since I'm alone in an office full of about 30 dual and triple screen linux machines and for some reason none of those "shit ton of problems/issues with multi-monitor support in X" come to mind.

Re:WOW!!!

[dbIII]

Pick a 2009 Linux distro, install it on a laptop, and then span

Seemed easy enough in 2003 with a couple of monitors and just kept on getting easier since. I think you need to pick an earlier date if you don't want to be caught out spreading bullshit.

Re:WOW!!!

[dbIII]

It gets even funnier. Citrix were the guys that ported a full X server and X windows capable apps to NT3.51 before MS got angry and blocked it.

Re:WOW!!!

[TemporalBeing]

This is true even of Windows 7; and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to - those from what I have seen, Windows 8 will put the Metro interface on one monitor and the Desktop interface on a second monitor by default; so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor. Might be the only way to use Windows 8 without getting rid of Metro.

Not sure what you mean by lack of difference in Win8. There is very significantly improved multimonitor support in Windows 8: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-windows-8-for-multiple-monitors.aspx

There's a significant difference in the User Interface, but a very lack of difference in kernel space (e.g. drivers).

Re:WOW!!!

[TemporalBeing]

- Windows allows you to either clone the monitors (e.g. presentation mode) or have one really big desktop that spans all the monitors; but applications can only min/max on one monitor; you can stretch an application to cross both monitors, but the max function provided by Windows won't do that.

The maximize button maximizes to current screen, doesn't stop you from actually making the window span all by resizing it yourself.

As noted in the original response.

- Windows leaves much of the multi-monitor support to the drivers. if you have several display adapters they better work well together at the driver level or you won't get multi-monitor. At work we tried adding a second monitor to a Windows system (2008 Server I think) but the driver for the second card would only work with other drivers that had WDM support; which the main card did not.

So you're argument is that you have a shitty card without drivers and you're complaining that it doesn't work? Seriously? Could you even use that card in Linux? I mean if it doesn't have a Windows driver what is the chance you're using anything other than VESA in Linux?

It has drivers. It just doesn't have drivers that support a certain Windows API that the other video card requires to do the multi-monitor support. It's not about bad drivers or lack of them; it's about how Microsoft implements multi-monitor and the fact that they leave it to the drivers to do the majority of the work unlike X windows which does it about the driver level.

- As of WinXP SP3 Windows does provide a nice built-in utility for manipulating mutli-monitor support when it is available, but it's very limited. Usually you'll get more functionality out of the driver tools (e.g. nVidia's ControlPanel) that will let you do a bit more. In no cases do any of those tools provide the flexibility of what Linux provides.

Its always proper to compare a 4.5 year old release of Windows to a modern Linux distro isn't it ...

Again, read the thread. XP was mentioned, but so was Windows Vista, Windows 7, AND Windows 8.

This is true even of Windows 7; and given the lack of differences for Win8 I would assume so there to - those from what I have seen, Windows 8 will put the Metro interface on one monitor and the Desktop interface on a second monitor by default; so you're dual-head display is now essentially a single head display for with two different environments on each monitor. Might be the only way to use Windows 8 without getting rid of Metro.

Then you need to learn how to use the control panel. Span the desktop properly and Metro will span with it. There pretty much isn't any truthful comparison in your entire post.

That's pretty new for Windows; yet Linux and Unix has been able to do that for well over 15 years (Linux) and over 20 years (Unix) that I know of.

Re:WOW!!!

[TemporalBeing]

I'd say I'm still qualified to answer.

I'd say characterizing yourself as a "no longer a windows user" is somewhat inaccurate, wouldn't you?

But depending on what you want to do, that can very well be a bug.

If you REALLY want to do that, you can buy a 3rd party solution.

Why should you need a third party solution? That's the whole point, and there are many that do use multi-monitor support in numerous ways. The Unix and Linux communities make far more use of multi-monitor than the Windows community; but they have also had better tools for it that are far more flexible for a lot longer.

Good to hear. They're catching up to the Unix world with much of that. KDE 3 (EOL'd several years ago) had multiple "taskbars" on each display years (10+?) ago; but Windows just gets it with Windows 8!

Meanwhile setting up multiple monitors on KDE3 in the first was a huge pain in the ass while I ran plug-and-play multiple monitors with windows 10+ years ago. I'm so glad Linux is finally just getting "plug-and-play" multi-monitor support that actually works. (well, we'll see if it actually just plug-n-play works... once distros start bundling it.) ;)

The DM developers (e.g. KDE, GNOME, etc) for a long time had no access to APIs that did that. It wasn't until udev+hald that some of that functionality to dynamically support it at the DM level was possible. Now, I do quite agree that that should have been done a long time ago. However, that doesn't negate the fact that once the X configuration file was setup, you quickly and easily got multi-monitor support in every DM without further hassle.

I had been running a multi-monitor display in KDE3 almost 10 years ago myself, and knew many that were running it well over 10 years ago with GNOME and KDE3.

Microsoft has done a bit to help cleanup the APIs for applications, and make a nicer settings for it all they still leave 90% of the grunt work to the graphics drivers; where X handles it in the X Server - above the graphics drivers, but below the Display Manager.

This seems like architectural nit-picking to me. So what if the grunt work is in the drivers?

It's a design difference yes, but one that makes a huge difference in the support. By leaving it to the drivers and providing a minimal uniform interface it all but guarantees incompatibilities will prevent the functionality as is the case with Windows. Where by implementing it in a level above the drivers the functionality can be provided without putting any requirements on the drivers themselves, so as long as the display is usable it can be made to work in multi-monitor, as has been the case with X Windows for over 20 years - yes, X Windows (X11 and its predecessors) was doing multi-monitor support when Windows was barely a year old; Xorg and Wayland continue that tradition. The ease of use varied by Unix flavor; but has been there for a very long time.

Still, Windows is far behind in features for multi-monitor support compared to the rest of the world.

And yet I'd rather set up multiple monitors on Windows than on linux because despite it being allegedly "far behind" its much easier to do, it's not a big mess if you remove or swap in a different monitor without reconfiguring the system first -- it just works.

Funny. My Dell D600 laptop (vintage 2003) I ran with Multi-monitor under Windows 2000 and XP (SP2 through SP3); however, whenever I wanted to hook up the external display (e.g. for a projector) I had to reboot the computer while running Windows to get it to be recognized. When I switched the same system to Linux (KDE), it just worked without any reboot required. I've known quite a few computers to have that same kind of issue - it always came down to the drivers.

Multi-monitor in Linux is now dead simple - far simpler than Windows ever was. Yes, there are still some things to fix; but I'd much rather do it in Linux than Windows.

Re:WOW!!!

[s.petry]

I used to write apps against libX in the 90s and 00s, what are your credentials?

Oooh, I had a class in college too. In fact I wrote GUI apps for Windows in Borland Delphi (as well as apps in X, VUE, and CDE), but..to be honest I hated GUI coding and went to exclusively back ends.

Fanboi for Unix? haha, probably true.. but you are just as guilty as being a fanboi for MS. Face facts, without Citrix licensing MS would still not have any compression and optimization methods for TS.

The late 70s had some early graphics and experimental windowing systems, and started the development for what became X in 1984. Come now, are you foolish enough to believe that it was developed in in the course of a year? No, hardly. Lets not revise too much history shall we? Windows for Dos was nothing but a MS variant of Geoworks for Commodore, which was an adaptation of what Xerox and several other companies had.

I'm okay with you bashing the backing store for X. It's actually a valid target because it was not intuitive for people to consider. In the early days, not all X servers used it the same either. Then again, we had X, Motif, Vue, etc... etc... It was all being innovated and developed at a pretty quick pace. MS developed.. um, nothing really. I guess in the early 90s you may consider the registry their own, but it killed Windows for numerous people and has been a massive pain in the ass ever since. And don't "but but but", anyone can go to Symantec and read what's required to remove a virus Hint: The majority of the work comes in when trying to hack the Registry back to normal.

And lets keep the history revision at least honest. MS has never innovated anything, they only added marketing and spit to what others had before them. Name any product that MS claims to have innovated and most people that have been in the market for more than 15 years can cite numerous previous products that MS copied or stole from.

Re:WOW!!!

[s.petry]

It does not matter. I am an engineer, and my configuration of a desktop is conducive to complex engineering/software development work, therefore my requirements are legitimate, and Windows' inability to satisfy them is a flaw. Just because there are plenty of other engineers who have never seen anything other than Windows, does not mean that they do not suffer and do inferior job, or live shorter, more miserable lives, because of the deficiency of the environment forced on them.

You're probably the most desktop-happy person I've ever come across. I know, you can't even conceive the idea that other people - equally bright or brighter than you - opt for different things, or develop in different environment, Just because you probably work surrounded by monkeys, it is naive to assume everyone that doesn't agree with you is one.

Actually it's funny that you make such a claim. Every environment I worked in where I started using Linux had people saying "Damn, how come I can't do that?". Every site has had a percentage of their technical staff switch to either Linux or MacOS over Windows. Currently, I use Redhat and Fedora, the guy next to me uses Ubuntu, the 2 people opposite of us run MacOS. The other 2 guys with Windows have already submitted requests to move to Ubuntu. Hell, I have my mom running Fedora and she loves it. She browses and uses Open Office.

The point is, that most people only know Windows. That is not the same thing as Windows being better. Average users are ignorant, and media ensures that they stay that way. You would be amazed at how much people want to learn about alternatives to Windows and how easily they can pick up KDE.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Every site has had a percentage of their technical staff switch to either Linux or MacOS over Windows

And switched one set of problems by others, because no software is perfect.

The point is, that most people only know Windows. That is not the same thing as Windows being better.

The whole discussion wasn't about "most people". It was about specific flaws and their impact on productivity. I actually use Windows as a desktop because not only X has some issues that make me unconfortable (one of them is font rendering), but also because I have almost no need for *nix GUI programs. Everything I need related to *nix is a terminal away, and with multiple flavors (Linux and BSD). What advantage would I gain in using Linux or whatever instead of windows? In my case, none - I'd lose flexibility, because in addition to the ton of software available for *nix, I can also run windows software.

Average users are ignorant, and media ensures that they stay that way.

One could say that average computer users (regardless of operating systems) are usually pretty narrow minded when it comes to technology. The OS is a tool as any other tool. It has strengths and weaknesses. And while you may argue that one is "better" than the other (at least for the kind of work you do), its a bit like having a hammer specialist laughing at you because you purchased the first one you saw at the store.

You would be amazed at how much people want to learn about alternatives to Windows and how easily they can pick up KDE.

Until they need to do someting non-trivial. Like copying formatted text from eg. the browser and paste it on any given word processing program, in a way it doesn't lose formatting. Or copying a vector drawing from Xsara or Inkscape and paste it on said program without having to think about widget libraries.
Or when you install it on a low-res screen (or assumes wrong drivers) and you can't click the buttons on the dialog boxes because they're out of screen. Or having to deal with sub-par generic printer drivers that don't have all the features of your printer (this is also a manufacturers problem, and it also occurs sometimes in OSX). These are problems that exist "forever" and get in the way of getting work done.

If your work is mostly writing code and sometimes using the browser/email, you won't be pleased with windows. But for those tasks, you don't even need a windowmanager. I changed jobs recently, and now my job is mostly writing code. Almost everyone uses linux as their main DE, (except me and some other weird guys). I deliver more, faster and with better quality than most of the other programmers - which is odd, because we actually develop software to be run on linux servers. I use windows coupled with linux virtual machines and filesystem mapping, plus usually half a dozen ssh terminals. Why, you ask? Because it allows me to focus on my work instead of going out of my way trying to figure out why a specific feature isn't working as expected.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Not really. Eg. my EEPC 900A (linux version) had a ton of issues with it, specially with video projectors. Only Ubuntu would work out-of-the-box in a satisfactory manner. Even today, where I work, we have more than one hundred dual-monitor setups for developers running mostly Ubuntu and sometimes some weird shit happens (like losing both screens when you unplug something). Not to mention the problems with modal dialogs - modal messages on secondary displays sometimes appear on the primary screen with the same Z-index of the application (more often than not, below another window). So, apparently we have a different definition of "easy".

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Sometimes the monitor and/or the available resolutions aren't properly detected. If you unplug a working monitor and plug another with different resolution, sometimes it fails to detect the new one. I've seen a strange issue on Ubuntu where, in certain conditions, if you unplug a monitor on a dual setup, you'd lose both screens. Then you have z-index and modal dialogs - sometimes, apps running on secondary displays that generate modal dialogs will display the modal dialog on the wrong monitor, but with a correct Z-index.
Where I work we have probably more than one hundred dual-monitor setups and some of these issues are pretty common.

Re:WOW!!!

[dbIII]

Seems fine on Fedora/centos/RHEL/debian/suse/solaris but the majority of stuff here uses the downloaded driver from nvidia, and only the ones with ati cards are using the setup that comes with the distribution. The last time I had hassles was years ago when I needed one PCI card per screen, and the hassles were not very large.
Even if the above happens a lot and the ubuntu configuration is a greater mess than I've ever seen you've still got to find a lot more to get that "shit ton of problems". I'm beginning to think you have only suggested that describing the problems is "pointless" due to not having any points to discuss.
Please keep in mind that a lot of readers here are also familiar with flaky multi-monitor problems on other systems. Win7 is pissing me off with that at this point (resolution changes and screen location switches on a 3 head two card system that behaves perfectly when booted into linux), and the native Win7 multi-monitor support is in some ways inferior to the matrox multi-monitor tools that would run on win2k. The nvidia tools take away all of the pain on the quatro systems but those options are not available any more on the cheaper cards - so win7 multi-monitor support just suddenly got worse than you could get on the same hardware on XP.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

Seems fine on Fedora/centos/RHEL/debian/suse/solaris but the majority of stuff here uses the downloaded driver from nvidia

Are you using nvidia funcionality to provide multiple monitor support, or just X-related options? Maybe that is the difference.

Even if the above happens a lot and the ubuntu configuration is a greater mess than I've ever seen you've still got to find a lot more to get that "shit ton of problems".

So, first you complain that there are no issues. I present you a couple of them (off the top of my head), and now you complain they are not enough. I could say that most GUI applications in X suck in multiple monitors (how many times the file open dialog opens on the wrong screen?) But yeah, this kind of "ping-pong" discussion is usually pointless, as you'll try to counter facts with the "works fine here" argument.

Please keep in mind that a lot of readers here are also familiar with flaky multi-monitor problems on other systems. Win7 is pissing me off with that at this point (resolution changes and screen location switches on a 3 head two card system that behaves perfectly when booted into linux)

I could borrow from your tone and say that because I never had issues with it, you're spreading bullshit. I don't know if "a lot of readers" have that problem (only you replied to this specific thread), but I'm not surprised. Problems exist in every platform, and even if Windows was completely broken on multi-monitor support (and it isn't), how does that minimize X's problems?

and the native Win7 multi-monitor support is in some ways inferior to the matrox multi-monitor tools that would run on win2k.

It is also somewhat inferior to a cheap video matrix and an upscaler, if I wanted to build a video wall. I also cannot easily create a "U" shaped desktop with multiple monitors. On the other hand, seems to work quite well in 2 or 3 monitor setup (aparently you do have issues with it, thats fair - I'm not claiming its perfect) without most of the quirks I pointed out in X.

The nvidia tools take away all of the pain on the quatro systems but those options are not available any more on the cheaper cards - so win7 multi-monitor support just suddenly got worse than you could get on the same hardware on XP.

Are you blaming the operating system for lacking a feature available on specific versions of the manufacturer drivers? Wow,

Re:WOW!!!

[s.petry]

If your work is mostly writing code and sometimes using the browser/email, you won't be pleased with windows. But for those tasks, you don't even need a windowmanager. I changed jobs recently, and now my job is mostly writing code. Almost everyone uses linux as their main DE, (except me and some other weird guys). I deliver more, faster and with better quality than most of the other programmers - which is odd, because we actually develop software to be run on linux servers. I use windows coupled with linux virtual machines and filesystem mapping, plus usually half a dozen ssh terminals. Why, you ask? Because it allows me to focus on my work instead of going out of my way trying to figure out why a specific feature isn't working as expected.

That itself is very narrow minded. How about an Engineer running CAE software that needs to perform meshing or CAD manipulation at the same time? How about people compiling large sets of code that need to work on other code? That's the strength of *nix, in multitasking. I run benchmark testing every year with the latest greatest Windows tuned however our windows admins like, against stock RH installs with no tuning. It's a night and day difference for users that push a computer.

For you, why not do what most *nix guys do and run a TS session on Linux? Gives you word without the limitations of Windows? You choose the alternative for some reason. Seems obtuse to me, but then again I run KDevelop more than Eclipse.

Back to your first point, the reason for the debate regarding Windows is that people stated *nix was inferior in every way. The point in not just my post, but numerous others is to debunk that myth.

To the second point about marketing, the difference is that MS pays a shitload of money to advertise, threatens vendors and BSA audits when people advertise others, and have flat out sued competing products (SCO vs. IBM, follow the money trail). It's yet another shitty business practice by MS, which is honestly a big reason that so many people with IT knowledge hate the company.

I agree that a tool is a tool (not in the diluted snarky sense), but the majority of people only see a hammer (MS). When they find out that there are much more comprehensive tools they enjoy using them.

Re:WOW!!!

[rev0lt]

That itself is very narrow minded. How about an Engineer running CAE software that needs to perform meshing or CAD manipulation at the same time?

Did I say my formula is the right one for everyone? No. I only said it works for me and for other people. But given that you mention CAD, I'd bet you have plenty more case uses with windows than with any other platform combined. And while today is common practice for eg. CNC machines (I had experience with both 3d milling machines and full-blown furniture-making ones, about a decade ago) to come with Linux, this is a recent trend and usually done to save money, not to increase flexibility.

How about people compiling large sets of code that need to work on other code? That's the strength of *nix, in multitasking.

I guess you skipped the part where I actually use *nix. And no, the strength of *nix isn't necessarily multitasking, that's why you have different schedulers on linux. Try CFS with a couple of thousand processes on a dual-core machine and see how fast it gets trashed. However, the choice of different schedulers and the fine tuning of them to specific multitasking requirements is a big strength (In windows this kind of finetuning is somewhat more difficult, and in some cases impossible - thats one of the reasons I don't use Windows on servers).

I run benchmark testing every year with the latest greatest Windows tuned however our windows admins like, against stock RH installs with no tuning.

Except that I'm not talking about server-side tasks. Again, you seem to have skipped the part where I actually use *nix (2 different operating systems, actually - both Linux and BSD). I couldn't care less about X.

For you, why not do what most *nix guys do and run a TS session on Linux?

One of the reasons is that every free/oss TS client for Linux is crappy as hell, and I also don't like the font rendering in X. Other reason is that I sometimes need color management capabilities, and software able to use color workflow - from input to printer. I've had also issues with keyboard handling, and of course, resource mapping (audio, filesystem, printers, etc).

You choose the alternative for some reason. Seems obtuse to me, but then again I run KDevelop more than Eclipse.

I choose what makes me confortable and able to produce more. The same way I don't criticize other's choice in desktop operating systems. OS are a tool, like everything else - a way to get work done.

Back to your first point, the reason for the debate regarding Windows is that people stated *nix was inferior in every way.

I actually never said that. What I said is that X is still a crappy solution for multi-monitor support. Aparently for some reason, everything that runs on Linux cannot have defects. I do find somewhat amusing people getting up in arms because I choose to use windows for desktop, and how *nix is superior because their Linux is magical. Well, I actually use Unix operating systems (FreeBSD and OpenBSD), and not some *nix clone - for more than a decade.

To the second point about marketing, the difference is that MS pays a shitload of money to advertise, threatens vendors and BSA audits when people advertise others,

Yes I buy everything I see on TV. I use Microsoft products because they advertise, not because they allow me to get work done. Guess what? One of the biggest Linux supporters also pays a shitload of money - IBM. Oddly enough, my Unix of choice (FreeBSD) has almost zero value as a buzzword.

It's yet another shitty business practice by MS, which is honestly a big reason that so many people with IT knowledge hate the company.

Many people with IT knowledge use the same references and get the same points of view. Its called herd mentality. It happens in every field of expertise. Microsoft do

Re:WOW!!!

[vux984]

Why should you need a third party solution? That's the whole point.

No, the whole point is that its an irrelevant feature virtually nobody cares about. Mark it off as a plus for linux if you wish, but its just not relevant.

When I switched the same system to Linux (KDE), it just worked without any reboot required. I've known quite a few computers to have that same kind of issue - it always came down to the drivers.

Yes, yes, yes, and for every system where hardware/driver support got better when switching to linux there are another 10 where it got worse. This isn't really a line of argument that makes sense to pursue.

Multi-monitor in Linux is now dead simple...

Great

far simpler than Windows ever was.

Hardly.

but I'd much rather do it in Linux than Windows.

Because?

When I was a kid...

[jtownatpunk.net]

The first time I ran X on my home computer, I had to call Diamond to get the timings for my SpeedStar card so I could calculate the correct values to put in my xconfig file. And the person who answered the phone knew exactly what I needed, flipped thru a binder, and read off the numbers.

Re:When I was a kid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you go to therapy weekly or monthly?

Re:When I was a kid...

[Burz]

Do you go to therapy weekly or monthly?

Monthly... He would go weekly but the analyst's office is a five mile walk uphill, both ways.

Re:When I was a kid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither. The OP dude grew up in an age when you had access to information and an ability to apply that information directly to troubleshooting and solving real world problems. He's probably as mellow as they get.

It's the modern devices with propriety drivers and documentation that make me crazy.

Re:When I was a kid...

[HornWumpus]

Having troubleshot and patched his own brain with a homemade electroshock machine? Solves many real world problems. Dumb and happy is within all of our reach.

I just wish I could flush a bunch of obsolete information from my grey matter and recover the space.

Re:When I was a kid...

[angelbar]

You need a Blue Pill, no isn't viagra.......well maybe both :)

Re:When I was a kid...

[Jmc23]

Ah the days of calculating modelines by hand and messing with pixel clocks and freqs. Count yourself lucky you got the information so easily!

Re:When I was a kid...

[rev0lt]

At least when it DIDN'T work, you didn't get a blank screen - the festive white (or black) smoke that would come out of the VDU were a good sign that something went wrong.

Re:When I was a kid...

[gbjbaanb]

yes, I remember those days. I used to code OS/2 (it was a long time ago) and I had 2 binders full of everything you could ever want to know about the APIs available to me. When I had an Amiga you could buy 3 rather large books with everything, down to wiring and chipset information. Even Windows NT (3.51) had a set of 5 books in hardbound covers that told you everything.

Today, the closest you get to support is:

"hello my name is Vijay how many I help you. I see what the problem might be being, please try to turn your device off and then on again and call back if the problem remains, now please tell me how well this support information has been to you today"... and when you call back, you get someone else giving you the same 'advice' and asking to be rated in helpfulness for a little bonus.

Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

Alright. Now when we can have the same desktop span multiple cards we'll have caught up to windows of 12 years ago.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Burz]

Actually, when Linux supports the kind of network transparency that allows efficient desktop sharing with multiple parties instead of resorting to a crude bitmap-tosser like VNC, then we will have caught up to the Windows and OS X of long ago.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, when Linux supports the kind of network transparency that allows efficient desktop sharing with multiple parties instead of resorting to a crude bitmap-tosser like VNC, then we will have caught up to the Windows and OS X of long ago.

Something like NoMachine's NX? Or about about X-Forwarding?

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[jedidiah]

I've actually used what MacOS has to offer in this regard.

No thanks.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

Which one of those lets me start an application on one machine and then continue using it on another machine like Windows has been able to do for well over a decade?

With all the praise that X gets for its network transparency, it's mostly unusable except on the highest bandwidth links because its synchronous calls and uber-chattiness make it unusable without adding a wrapper around it, like NX does. That's the irony. Pretty much any protocol can be called "network transparent" as long as that includes writing a suitably complicated wrapper for it. In this regard, X is no more network transparent than any other display technology.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright. Now when we can have the same desktop span multiple cards we'll have caught up to windows of 12 years ago.

are you fucking retarded? multi desktop came after the single desktop span feature. in fact 12 years ago this was the default and only options on many video cards with many window managers. I had to switch from blackbox to fluxbox for this reason. you have your ass on upside down bro.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[TemporalBeing]

Use SSH+X-Forwarding, start screen with a named window, start the application, press CTRL+Z to put it in the background, detach from screen.
Start another SSH+X-Forwarding on another system, attach to screen using the named window, and foreground the process.

Haven't tried it, but it should work. "screen" (or one the many others that do the same job) should keep the application up and running while you switch machines just like it does for console applications.

Or you could just install a Remote Desktop Service to handle RDP just like Windows, for example XRDP.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

The X server that the application will connect to is based on the value of the DISPLAY environment variable at the time it is loaded. Backgrounding and then foregrounding won't result in it sending it's stuff to a new X server. In fact, once it's attached to an X server, it can't be detached and reattached to another X server. This is a limitation of X -- the very limitation that I was talking about.

In addition to this, the screen session inherits and keeps the DISPLAY variable set during the X forwarding session. Therefore anything started in that screen session, regardless of where that screen has been reattached to will actually run through the original X tunnel and back on the original SSH client machine.

I.e. if I SSH -X to a host and start a screen session that you attach to. Even if I detach my screen, as long as my SSH session is open, you could attach to that same screen and use it to start applications on my desktop.

The problem with things like XRDP is exactly the same as the problem I've been explaining. If I start an application against one X server, then network transparency is from there on useless to me. I can't simply move it to another server. With windows, this has always been possible.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at xpra.org and winswitch.org.
I played with Xpra and winswitch. They worked, in that I could start a program and then yank or push it to another x server. However, the release I was using leaked lots of resources (CPU time and memory, but I couldn't figure out where the CPU time was going).

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[IpalindromeI]

I haven't used it myself, but maybe this does what you want?

http://xpra.org/

Or is this the same as the XRDP situation? Although, I don't really understand what you mean by "simply move it to another server" in the Windows context.

Can you really start an executable on one machine and move the running executable to another machine? Your comment further up merely says:

Which one of those lets me start an application on one machine and then continue using it on another machine like Windows has been able to do for well over a decade?

To me, this sounds like RDP: connect from a client machine, start an application on the server, disconnect, reconnect later from another client to continue using the application. The application itself is still running on the same server machine.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

Can you really start an executable on one machine and move the running executable to another machine?

No, I mean can start an application running on machine A and displaying on A's display, then access that same instance of the application from machine B's display, then display C if I want etc., all the while never exiting the application running on machine A.

xrpa seems interesting but appears to be VNC for X, not actual X. This is what the GGGGP was referring to as "bitmap tossing" which is pretty useless over slow connections while windows RDP is not.

To me, this sounds like RDP

Which is exactly what I was talking about. Windows has provided this capability for over a decade and linux has not except with VNC which is unacceptable.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up xpra; it's exactly what you're asking for (essentially "screen" for X)

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

Replying to myself. XRPA does in fact work with the following caveats:

1. It does appear to use bitmap tossing and probably for this reason is painfully slow over low bandwidth connections - far more sluggish than Windows' RDP.
2. Like "screen" for console apps, you'd have to have started the application in the xrpa session in order to be able to attach it to a remote screen.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[fikx]

Actually curious, how do you remote an app in Windows at all? As far as I knew you ran it on the desktop and remoted the whole desktop...and how do you switch the app from one machine to another? I'd like to be able to do this often. If it's available in windows I've been missing out...

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

You don't. Sorry, didn't mean to suggest this was possible.

To be fair, I'd be perfectly happy to transfer the entire X session from one machine to another (provided X was also made as fast as NX), but that doesn't seem to be possible except through VNC which is unacceptable in its slowness and its inability to change screen dimensions, or xpra which is unacceptably slow also, and often cripples performance and features when running locally.

So the point is that the use case in Windows where I can start an application on my home desktop, then access that application later from my work machine with reasonable performance and at the client-side resolution, then do the same from my neighbor's house, etc, all without exiting the application.... this is all I am referring to.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[TemporalBeing]

Replying to myself. XRPA does in fact work with the following caveats:

1. It does appear to use bitmap tossing and probably for this reason is painfully slow over low bandwidth connections - far more sluggish than Windows' RDP. 2. Like "screen" for console apps, you'd have to have started the application in the xrpa session in order to be able to attach it to a remote screen.

FYI - XRPA, which I referenced in my original reply, supports both VNC and RDP protocols via the same library used by various Linux RDP clients to talk with Windows RDP Servers. So I would expect they would be doing the same compression when using RDP, and like with Windows it displays on a local X instance (Windows Terminal Services Display) that is then forwarded to the remote side.

Windows does not support remote rendering of applications like the X Protocol does. The Win32 API simply doesn't support it - all rendering is done locally then the bitmap compressed and forwarded to the remote RDP client.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[BitZtream]

Sadly, OSX uses VNC, its pretty shitty in that respect.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[BitZtream]

Windows does not support remote rendering of applications like the X Protocol does.

Wrong. Hasn't been that way for some time. Don't know when Citrix started offering remote rendering but the built in TS in Vista does it to a minor extent and Win7 does it to a large extent.

The Win32 API doesn't need to be modified to support it, just the subsystem under it. Switching between the two is a simply matter of forcing a redraw, which all apps have to support anyway. Top it off with the fact that RDP supports bitmap caching and you don't even need to do full redraws.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[cbhacking]

It actually is possible, though it's rather complex to do manually. It's used automatically in some places, for example Win7's Virtual XP Mode will appear to run XP programs on the Win7 desktop by remoting them from the VM. It can also be manually configured (at least on Server, and possibly on Client): http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Configuring_RemoteApps_on_Windows_Server_2008

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, that's a lie. What it actually does is that it does the normal full-desktop RDP thing, but then clips the displayed screen so that the desktop areas are transparent. Combined with funny tricks in Win7 about having separate taskbar entries, it looks kinda like per-window RDP. However, that means 1) you can't have remote-local-remote window overlaps, 2) if you move a window around quickly you can see the background from the server for a split second before the transparency area updates. If you've seen VMWare's full screen integration mode (I forget what it's called), it's a similar thing.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[dbIII]

Being limited to one to one instead of many to one is what I would find unacceptable, but I suppose if all you have is limitations and you want to cheer about something then you cheer about your remote cloned desktop instead of the actual applications you want to use remotely.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[codewarren]

Being limited to one to one instead of many to one is what I would find unacceptable

It's X that has this limitation. With X, when I attach an application to a display (X server) it's forever tied to that display and can't be moved.

There is no such limitation in Windows. The only limitation in Windows is that I have to move all my applications in my session to that display, but this is hardly a noteworthy limitation since it's MY session and I'm not setting at the old display anymore.

With X, I have to stop the application, then start it on the new display. Hooray, I don't have to bring my whole session over if I don't want to, but I would gladly do so if it meant resuming the running instance of my already-running application.

The point of this whole (off-topic) discussion is that these are two completely different use cases. One is remote execution of an application. The other is remote control of an application. X only does the former. Windows is actually capable of either (with the caveat that it requires you to start a remote logon session to remote the execution of a single app).

I'm not "cheering" about Windows, you troll. My point is and has been that I hate Windows and love Linux and yet trying to do this simple task in Linux is still not possible a decade after Windows managed it which is extremely frustrating. The most frustrating part is that every time someone complains about the lack of this feature, someone comes along with a shithead response like yours. "What? You want a feature Windows has? Fuck you, you must be a Microsoft lackey."

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

It does appear to use bitmap tossing and probably for this reason is painfully slow over low bandwidth connections

which is why god invented "ssh -CX".

not vectorized, or as fast as NX, but still usable from another country.

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

that's pretty funny

Re:Wake me up when we support multiple video cards

[dargaud]

The linux nVidia driver does this out of the box, even on different models that use different busses (PCI and PciEx for instance).

Suggestion

[Tailhook]

A suggestion to the developers. Please allow for degenerate cases. I deal with a set of old, specialized, practically irreplaceable displays that cannot produce DPMS data. In the past I've suffered with embedded displays that produce completely inaccurate DPMS data.

Allow the operator a means to manually override whatever display parameters your software obtains (probably via xrandr) from the operating system. The display parameters are often bogus and must be corrected.

Re:Suggestion

[Jmc23]

Your suggestion to deal with rare cases for old displays would probably be better received if it was sent to the developers along with a donation.

Re:Suggestion

[s.petry]

I very much agree with you!

[rant] I tire pretty quickly of the rants against KDE (and any other "Free" software for that reason) because someones one off, special case, old shit does not work. Usually that's followed by "KDE sucks because my special case bullshit works in Unity/Gnome/Xfce, etc..".

Here is a suggestion for people. If you have old special case bullshit, even if you paid a million dollars for it 15 years ago, go buy some new stuff.. or don't have the expectation that a new operating system will work with your old shit!. It is like expecting that your Model T tires fit and function on your 56 T-Bird, it's not sensible or logical. [/rant]

Re:Suggestion

[coats]

And put in correct support for all the KDE-bugs associated with xrandr --panning !!

I'm not running "old hardware" and all these KDE bugs, due to developers making incorrect X assumptions instead of actually knowing what they're doing, are the last thing keeping me from running KDE4.

FWIW.

Re:Suggestion

[Shotgun]

No. Expecting your software to work on all hardware out of the box is not sensible or logical.

Protocols get modified, misinterpreted, corrupted, or just plain screwed up by bad programmers. Anticipating this is called "validating input". Your program did not generate the data, therefore it is input, and you should provide some method for it to be validated, overridden or ignored. I work in software QA and I tire quickly of developers assuming that data derived from external sources is somehow sacrosanct. It is almost as stupid and worn out as "the customer would never do that." The "one off, special case, old shit" is not a rare exception, and it can almost always be handled by proper validation and a configuration dialog.

Mission Accomplished, Great! Now let ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now i hope someone will implement away of controlling which screen your icons will be on.

The only "new" stuff was after 2:40

[gQuigs]

Basically..
  * it will remember what you configuration was used with that monitor
  * when you close your laptop it will go to the native resolution of the attached screen

I don't even know how new those are, but I've never personally used (or noticed) either of them before...

Everything else, I've been using succesfully since I started using laptops on both Windows and Linux.

2 or n screens?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 3 TFTs with 2 nVidia cards and I really hope this tool makes it somehow easier to configure. So far I always had to tweak xorg.conf using twinview etc. For some unknown reason the KDE devs seem to think the world only uses 2 screens max. What a pain!!!!!!!

Re:2 or n screens?

[Anonymous Coward]

twinview is the worst proprietary crap ever - you should be using nouveau and xrandr.

Re:2 or n screens?

[simcop2387]

The other AC here is likely right. This possibly isn't an issue with KDE but in fact some annoyance with NVIDIA's twinview which actually does assume you only ever have two monitors max.

Re:2 or n screens?

[blackpaw]

You motivated me to give nouveau a go after a long absence from it. I'm impressed, performance seems excellent and I have all desktop effects working, plus two monitors. Using an GT220.

Thanks.

Really? This is new?

[Arcady13]

I was doing this on a Mac II in 1986.

Re:Really? This is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

You had Linux running on a Mac II in 1986?

You are a god.

Re:Really? This is new?

[Cito]

I had minix in 1987 on dual crts :)

Re:Really? This is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had dual CRTs on my Linux setup in 1993, if you count one CRT being an honest-to-god VT-100 terminal hanging off the serial port at 38400 baud.

Re:Really? This is new?

[Bearhouse]

Ahhhh...the VT100. Counts as a display in my book

Re:Really? This is new?

[ChunderDownunder]

Mac II wasn't released until 1987.

Re:Really? This is new?

[Arcady13]

Mac II wasn't released until 1987.

Some people were using them before they were released...

C:\ongratulations (kinda of)

[ntropia]

It is the common Linux empasse: tons of features hidden behind complex command (and features are the very last things Linux lacks....)

A pretty obvious solution to come out of it could be that for a GUI-related feature, i.e. X, or any other graphic code, to be considered as such, must have a... (now, mod this redundant)... GUI available to use it.
Obviously? Well, not very much so, if we still need to cheer this kind of news as... news.
Don't get me wrong, I consider this new tool extremely useful, but it basically builds on top of xrandr, a respectable piece of code dating back to way too many years ago.
By the way, if they would add some extra info on screen when switching between modes, I would consider it simply perfect.

Nice but not compelling

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any noticeable value above and beyond what you already get from a combination of any display configurator out there (Nvidia-settings, YaST, etc) and Cinnamon's Display Switcher applet ( http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/43 ).
Configuring monitors (even multiple monitors) has gotten to be dirt simple in most cases - the auto-magic configurators in the various Linux distros are all pretty functional, these days.

MS-DOS 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, your subject line betrays your loyalties.

What DOS-based browser are you using? Arachne? How does it handle large web pages like /.? Do you use extended or expanded memory?

Re:MS-DOS 5.0

[ntropia]

Sorry to disappoint you, but it was a reference to an old advertise Apple made when Windows was hitting the market, teasing them for their DOS heritage, indeed.
At least it didn't get modded "redundant" :)

Re:MS-DOS 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Well played sir. C:\ongratulations to you as well.

Gotten better? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Unity and GNOME 3 don't even work correctly with multiple monitors and don't work with multiple video cards at all.

In the general space multi-monitor support has gotten much worse. My 2 video card, 4 monitor configuration worked fine 10 years ago but nowadays I have to do all kinds of hacks to get it to work. Disable compiz, run a hacked window manager, hacked libXinerama, etc.

KDE is the only desktop that works out of the box on my setup. I don't run KDE though because it's too fat and weird in the way it looks and operates.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[mister_playboy]

So you have dual video cards and quad monitors, but you can't spare the resources for KDE? OK.

In my experience the RAM usage difference between Gnome, XFCE and KDE isn't very big.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it lags the machine. I run my system at the edge of performance. I often have 3 X servers, half a dozen vmware machines, and two or three VirtualBox machines running. Each of those can be doing anything from playing a game, crunching financial data, crunching scientific data, compiling, etc.

KDE wastes too much precious resources. I don't care about the desktop environment whatsoever, it does nothing for me. I just need a window manager, that's it.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

XFCE(Xubuntu) works right out of the box. It also helps to have a NVIDIA card.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

I run my system at the edge of performance.

It sounds more like you run your hand at the edge of your cock.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, really, you are saying KDE is more resource intensive than Gnome 3 (w. Unity)? At least most benchmarks would say you are totally wrong, and KDE 4 can run in only a few hundred megs of RAM. I mean, really, if you said something like Fluxbox/etc, I could understand... but calling KDE a resource hog while using Gnome/Unity? Riiiiiiiiiiiiight...

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you disabled all of the annoying search/indexing stuff that defaults to "on" in KDE? Also, I always use bare bone window decorations in KDE, as anything with transparency or shadows seems to cause unnecessary graphical hangups/low FPS (yes, I actually do keep compositing on).. or at least, in KDE 4.8, this is my experience. Perhaps KDE 4.9+ have fixed those issues.

Anyways, my point is that KDE, when configured to not do all the annoying stuff that it does by default, is quite responsive and is not any more resource-intensive than the alternatives.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Teun]

Don't spoil the man's ancient beliefs by offering facts :)

I mean, there really seems to be something cultist about calling KDE heavy.
My experience is exactly the opposite, KDE is (for a full desktop experience) less of a memory hog than old Gnome and the recent RC for KDE4.10 shows even more improvements.

Re:Gotten better? I don't think so

[Rysc]

If the alternative isn't GNOME or XFce but instead "just" a window manager, then KDE is indeed far more resource-intensive than the alternatives.

Compare your stripped-down KDE with fvwm2, e16 or twm. Go ahead and leave out your launcher, desktop and everything: compare *just* kwin. It's far, far heavier.

When you need "Just a WM" it's better to avoid the DE-focused WMs.

Cool Demo

[LifesABeach]

How about doing it with 3,4,5, or 6 screens?

Re:Cool Demo

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem. Just needs some clever and strategic placements of an array of mirrors.

That's for the next release.

nvidia-settings

[Anonymous Coward]

Too complicated for KDE users?

Probably.

Re:nvidia-settings

[HJED]

To change those settings using nvidia-settings, you have to reboot I though that the point of this was that you didn't? If that is the case then that is absolutely brilliant as that has been one of the major flaws of linux. (I regularly use a kde multi-monitor setup)

Re:nvidia-settings

[Anonymous Coward]

I also regularly use a KDE multi-monitor setup, and nvidia-settings. I'm curious - what requires a reboot? I've not come across anything that does, that I can remember.

Re:nvidia-settings

[kayoshiii]

How do you use Nvidia Settings to reconfigure your screen layout automatically when you plug in a new screen? I have a laptop that gets a second screen when I am in the office and this would save me a few clicks.

Re:nvidia-settings

[HJED]

changing screen position, switching between dual screens and xcinerama, and most importantly changing the number of screens connected.

Re:nvidia-settings

[Teun]

No reboot is needed for changes by nvidia-settings, just connect the beamer/external monitor, set it up through nvidia-settings and be done.

Re:nvidia-settings

[HJED]

Some things you can change without a reboot, but when configuring external monitors, you do (E.g. making the OS use them, changing between xcinerama and dual screen, and changing relative position of the monitors) requires you to reboot (or at least restart x, which amounts to the same thing because you have to close all your running programs)

Re:nvidia-settings

[Shotgun]

Not true. At least, not on any installation I've had since I started running Kubuntu in something like 2008.

Re:nvidia-settings

[Teun]

Please note Cinerama is not nvidia-settings.
But even then, this 'need' to reboot or restart X only comes up when you want to run separate X screens in stead of TwinView which I consider the standard for a dual screen set up.
Like when I do a presentation with LibreOffice I get the editable file on the laptop screen and the presentation on the beamer, easy for all because that way any other things on the laptop screen remain private.

Ubuntu / Gnome or Unity?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great - can someone port to Unity and/or Gnome on Ubuntu?

Re:Ubuntu / Gnome or Unity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, not a problem. Who do I make the invoice out to and can you pay me 50% in advance so I can take time off my current job? It will be GPLed, is that okay with you?

"gotten much better"?

[hgesser]

The article says: "This is one thing that's certainly gotten much better in recent years for Linux GUI users in general..." -- I cannot agree. While connecting a beamer to a notebook is simpler today, support for multiple monitors (of a desktop machine) is far from where it was some years ago. For years I had been able to disable the (default) Xinerama options, so I could have two separate instances of (e.g. KDE 3) running on both screens. That allowed me for example to stay on virtual desktop 1 on the left monitor and cycle through my virtual desktops on the right monitor. (Imagine lots of data sources on the right screen and some application I use to combine stuff on the left monitor; I want to switch desktops without the left monitor changing its content). This is still possible today, but it's a lot harder and depends on what kind of graphics card you use. Granted, my old way required knowledge of the xorg.conf syntax, but once it was finished it gave me maximum configurability. Last time I checked, KDE 4 wasn't able to start two instances on :0.0 and :0.1 properly which is why I'm still using KDE 3 (a.k.a. "Trinity" today).
Hans-Georg

Re:"gotten much better"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just ... pin the window to every desktop? You can switch desktops willy-nilly, and the window on monitor #2 will drag itself along.

Re: "gotten much better"?

[hgesser]

Yes, that does solve the particular problem I described, and I've already used that trick. But it's not a general solution to the "independent virtual desktop switching" problem. Very old Linux installations had no Xinerama option, so the concept of having a single desktop that spreads over several monitors was introduced after I became used to dealing with things separately on each monitor. What I prefer (the non-Xinerama mode) has the disadvantage that you cannot move windows to the other monitor; I guess that is why so many people (seem to) prefer the Xinerama way. But I found that my workflows work better in non-Xinerama mode.

Also, sometimes dialogs belonging to a program on one monitor will pop-up on the other one in Xinerama mode -- that does not happen when the displays are logically seperate.

Re: "gotten much better"?

[Shotgun]

You could always drop back to launching the programs from terminal, and specifying the DISPLAY environment variable beforehand. Another alternative is to edit the programs command in the launcher to specify the DISPLAY variable. I run three instances of the X-Plane flight simulator on three monitors. I built a stand so that it wraps around my head. This requires that I turn off Xineranama and use the displays separately. I have a shell script that launches each X-Plane instance in the background, exporting the correct DISPLAY variable beforehand.

Re:Mission Accomplished, Great! Now let ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, highlight them and drag them to the desired screen?

Re:Mission Accomplished, Great! Now let ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not what he meant. He wants it set or fixed when the app is initiated, not after. Thanks for playing, though.

A 10+ year old application will fix that for you

[dbIII]

Things like x11vnc give you that same MS Windows behavior of a portable desktop if you really want that too - so your example above can be done on many platforms and not just MS. Plus you missed the point - "many to one" means exactly what it says, put applications running on multiple hosts on your screen instead of a confusing pile of VNC or similar desktops (been there, done that, had to colour code the backgrounds to keep it sane).
Also putting words in my mouth, then calling me a troll based on those words of yours really makes me think you just came here for a fight or something instead of trying to tell us all about "an exciting feature of MS windows" (the remote access stuff) as if we hadn't been using it for years and found it lacking.

Anyway, enough of that, I'm not here for a fight, instead I'll just give you a solution to this challenge you posted above, even though I'm a little surprised that you don't already know the solution since it's been around for at least a decade:

With X, I have to stop the application, then start it on the new display. Hooray, I don't have to bring my whole session over if I don't want to, but I would gladly do so if it meant resuming the running instance of my already-running application.

Then gladly download this (http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/), run it, then suddenly your entire desktop is available remotely without restarting X or the applications, and at the same site there's some nice little frontends to get to remote VNC sessions via an ssh tunnel if that's what you need to get to a VNC session. It may not be X windows transport but it perfectly solves your little "showstopper" and gives you the behaviour you appear to be suggesting is only available on MS Windows.

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[codewarren]

I have used x11vnc and its performance is unacceptable as I already said. But it is irrelevant anyway because I can't use it for my local desktop AND expect to watch videos, or do anything with advanced graphics. Windows RDP does not suffer from this limitation. It lets me use a local desktop with all its performance and then lets me remote the apps in that session.

It is not a fight I am looking for but a feature. And I know I am not the only one who notices this feature is missing, but whenever I bring it up I get these smart-associated non-solutions. I said "troll" after being accused of cheering for Microsoft.

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[dbIII]

I did nothing of the sort, if you read above it's about cheering for RDP (which seems to be behaving better for you than and instance of RDP I've ever seen). Meanwhile I was watching videos and using advanced graphics with X, both thanks to OpenGL, in around 2000, so it appears you do not know what you are talking about.

Typo - missing word

[dbIII]

Meanwhile I was watching videos and using advanced graphics remotely with X, both thanks to OpenGL, in around 2000

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[dbIII]

I have used x11vnc and its performance is unacceptable as I already said

It ticks all the boxes of the "showstopper" you had and I think you are going to have to quantify what is "unacceptable performance", because it seems to outperform RDP over ADSL, local network, and even dial-up. Are you going to shift the goalposts to something I haven't tried like satellite?

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[codewarren]

so it appears you do not know what you are talking about

Really it appears that you don't know what I'm talking about, but I can't understand why. Perhaps you haven't read the thread. I never claim I can't watch videos etc over X and I never asked to do those remotely. I do these things locally now and have been for years. I've used Linux since 99 and exclusively since 2006.

And so can you. Fantastic, but on that same X where you watch videos, can you start a word processor (for example) use it for a while, then remotely resume that instance from a friend's house? With RDP this was possible, but I don't use Windows anymore.

So now I'm typing a message into a browser window. If I go to a friend's house and want to resume typing this reply, I can't. I could have if I had started this in x11vnc, yes, except I can't use x11vnc for my desktop because it can't do videos/opengl/etc. With RDP I could, but I don't use Windows anymore.

What looks promising is xpra, which I just learned about here, although I still have to choose between performance and remotability at application startup or find a way to do so automatically.

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[dbIII]

So now I'm typing a message into a browser window. If I go to a friend's house and want to resume typing this reply, I can't. I could have if I had started this in x11vnc

I either didn't explain it well enough or you missed the point that you can install x11vnc after X is running and export an existing desktop that is already being displayed. I did that on one machine a couple of weeks ago so that I could read the text in an open terminal window from home. Given the number of compression and transport options available to that and similar but not yet available on RDP I cannot take your "performance" claims seriously. I've had nothing but disappointment every time I go near RDP - even the third party proxy based desktop sharing systems like WebEx and GoToMyPC piss all over it by any measure, let alone properly compressed X or VNC.

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[codewarren]

Dammit, sorry, the technology I was thinking of was Xvnc's not x11vnc's. I apologize for adding to the confusion.

The big problem with VNCs like x11vnc is the latency incurred by screen polling. Xvnc doesn't need to do this, and neither does RDP. (This is why I thought that's what you were talking about.)

Even if latency were solved, there's still the issue of VNC just being a remote view of a local display and RDP is a remote display. The difference is that with the latter, the desktop takes on the shape of the remote end. Trying to view a 3840x1200 display on a 1200x768 display is just a disaster (not to mention the unnecessary performance degradation it also incurs as a result of needing to send vastly more data in my cases)

RDP's design isn't perfect, though. I prefer X's design by far if it were to fix the must-decide-at-startup and network performance issues.

Oh, and as an aside, the latency with X's protocol is in large part not solved by compression. What makes NX much faster is its elimination of a lot of the round trips inherent in X's protocol (by essentially faking responses) which are the biggest cause of X slowness, but much trickier to implement than just compression.

Re:A 10+ year old application will fix that for yo

[dbIII]

I mentioned that one because of the long list of optimisations cut down on the amount of polling and do a lot of compression (which does help VNC, and that's why I mentioned it). I've got two geophysists using x11vnc that look at their desktops on nights and weekends to see what state their running jobs are up to and to start off new ones. Others just use plain X over ssh or VPN, but don't do much graphical stuff.
An extension to hand windows over to other displays would be nice.