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dual monitors



On 02/21/2011 01:14 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> This weekend I attached a 2nd monitor to my laptop and designated it the
> "primary display" in the "NVIDIA X Server Settings" applet. I have it
> running in "TwinView" mode where the two monitors share a contiguous
> desktop.
> 
> I've ran across plenty of mentions of issues with multiple monitors in
> X, and sure enough it didn't take long to spot them. I could see the
> occasional, obscure app. not handling it well (like DockBarX, or Bless
> Hex editor, both of which have problems) but I'm seeing issues with some
> main stream apps like OpenOffice. OOo puts up its splash screen centered
> across both displays. Then opens its window on on the laptop's screen,
> rather than the primary display. Even after manually moving the window
> to the correct display, every time it opens a dialog it goes back to the
> laptop's display.
> 
> It probably doesn't help that the primary display ended up being to the
> right of the laptop. I have a feeling poorly coded defaults would tend
> to work better if things were the other way around, but this ordering
> fits the physical setup better.
> 
> So I'm wondering, is there an X configuration (for GNOME 2.28.1
> w/nvidia-glx-185) that is the "path of least resistance" for getting
> dual monitors to work with the fewest problems?

You don't describe how you *want* it to work, but I'll give my
experience.  Using NVidia's tool, I have my two monitors set up as
separate X sessions.  That means they each have their own wallpapers,
top and bottom toolbars, and I can maximize apps (like MythTV) to one
screen without it imposing on the other screen, and alt-tabbing around
open windows does so separately for each monitor.

I have mt TV hooked up as a second monitor on the wall behind my laptop
table, so I told it my primary monitor (you can choose which one is
primary, you know) is the laptop LCD and the secondary display is the TV
which is above the primary display,

The only downside of setting up the two monitors as separate X sessions
is that it's impossible to move a window from one display to another,
but for me that's a feature.





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