[oclug] Current state of multi-headed X display in Linux?

[K Everets]

On Sun, Oct 06, 2002 at 01:42:05PM -0400, Andrew Plumb wrote:

> Subject asks it all.  What is the current state of multi-headed X
> display in Linux?  How many people on the list are doing this?  Which
> card(s) are you using?

I'm doing this, with an S3 Trio3D (built into motherboard) and a
Matrox G200 PCI.  I've also used an older ATI Mach64 and another
generic PCI card (don't remember the chipset).  Basically, you can use
multiple PCI, AGP, and ISA cards, or mix them.  It's just a matter of
which one gets chosen for boot-time (as only one of them will) until
you get into X.

> Several of the graphics card vendors out there have dual-headed cards. 
> Anyone using them?  How about Matrox's triple-headed Parhelia-512?

Never used a dual- or triple-headed card, myself.

I'm currently using two 1600x1200 displays, both at 16-bit colour.
I've previously had a 1600x1200 and a 1024x768 at 24-bit colour, but
prefer the larger screen real estate to the deeper colour depth.  Only
some window managers will work well with mis-matched resolutions.
Sawfish seems to be the most adept at it.  WindowMaker (my other
common choice) doesn't maximize well to only one screen, so you get a
little dead area (at least, it did with the .70 series... .80 might be
better at this).

Basically, it works well.  Just set up your XF86Config-4 for each
display, and then combine them with help from the HowTo that Brad
pointed out.

Cheers,

Kevin.