Are multihead setups WITHOUT xorg possible?

rokyo · 03-07-2019, 01:27 AM

Hey, I was wondering if a setup with multiple monitors but NO X11/xorg/etc installed was at all possible.

So, basically just the console (bash, sh, or other) but on three monitors, ideally each monitor showing a different tty, for example:

left monitor: shows htop on tty1
right monitor: shows tail -f /var/log/messages on tty3
middle monitor: shows tty2 where you currently work
switching to tty1 or tty3 via Ctrl-Alt-F1/F3 will NOT bring that tty to the middle monitor BUT switch your input to that tty on the screen it already is. So, when I press Ctrl-Alt-F1 for tty1, I look to the left monitor and get my blinking input cursor on that monitor. When I press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to go back to tty2, the input 'switches' back to the middle monitor.

Is anything like that possible at all? Because, if I search for 'multihead setup linux' or similar queries on the internet, I ALWAYS get something that mentions X11 or xorg or similar.

I'm not looking for complete guides on how to archive this (although, if you want to give one, I'll take it

), just a general idea if this is at all possible (so I don't start trying something that has no chance of ever working).

Thanks in advance for any answers!

Best regards,
rokyo

EDIT:
Yes, I want to have a setup that looks like from those 90s hacker movies. That is the only reason why I want to do this

mrmazda · 03-07-2019, 02:35 AM

IME by default, starting an Xorg session with three connected displays will place them side-by-side as one extra wide screen. You can open htop and move its window to the left if it didn't start there, then tail /var/log/messages and move its window to the middle, then open an Xterm and drag its window to the right side. Ctrl-[1,2,3] rather than Alt-Tab can make a switch, or just move the mouse.

Ctrl-Alt-F[1,2,3] will switch among 3 virtual desktops, if your WM or DE can be so configured. All I've used (KDE, TDE, IceWM, XFCE) can by default. Right now I am using 8. This works without xorg.conf whether using 1, 2, 3 or more displays.

If you want different X apps to run in different vttys (Ctrl-Alt-Fn), then you need three sessions, on screen :0, screen :1 & screen :2. You don't need xorg.conf for that either.

I'm not sure if I've covered what you're asking. If I haven't, xorg.conf I'm pretty sure is required.

allend · 03-07-2019, 07:43 AM

I have never tried this, but I would look at modedb.txt (for specifying outputs) and fbcon.txt (in particular the fbcon=map option) in the kernel source.
Look in /sys/class/drm/ for output names on your hardware.
This wayback post suggests this approach, but the OP never reported back.

mrmazda · 03-07-2019, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allend

Look in /sys/class/drm/ for output names on your hardware.

or

Code:

xrandr --listproviders

Quote:

This wayback post suggests this approach

Interesting.

rokyo · 03-08-2019, 02:22 AM

Thanks for the answers!

mrmazda:
I haven't installed any WM or DE at all. Right now it's just a blank Arch install (only base and base-devel package groups installed, nothing else). Ideally (if at all possible), I would try to archive this without any WM/DE, as I would love to keep the memory usage somewhere below 128MB for the total system (right now it's at 56MB with basically only systemd, dbus and bash running after a login). I'm afraid that even iceWM would push me over the 128MB.

(Just to clarify: The machine has more than 128MB of RAM, I just want to build the most frugal system possible and try to archive true "life with only the command line" for this particular system. While the system is supposed to run "productivity apps" like neomutt, elinks, sc, wordgrinder, etc and also "entertainment apps" like mplayer, moc or fbi, which surely will push memory usage above 128MB in the end, I wanted to keep the "backbone", the operating system itself, below the 128MB to have the majority of my RAM available for "user activity".)

allend:
Oh yeah, that looks interesting, indeed! I'll have a look and report back!

teckk · 03-08-2019, 11:31 AM

There have been a few threads on that.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=138912
https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...ut-an-x-server

Code:

pacman -Si tmux screen

https://superuser.com/questions/3868...heme-without-x
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=132756

ondoho · 03-08-2019, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rokyo

I haven't installed any WM or DE at all. Right now it's just a blank Arch install (only base and base-devel package groups installed, nothing else). Ideally (if at all possible), I would try to archive this without any WM/DE, as I would love to keep the memory usage somewhere below 128MB for the total system (right now it's at 56MB with basically only systemd, dbus and bash running after a login). I'm afraid that even iceWM would push me over the 128MB.

(Just to clarify: The machine has more than 128MB of RAM, I just want to build the most frugal system possible and try to archive true "life with only the command line" for this particular system. While the system is supposed to run "productivity apps" like neomutt, elinks, sc, wordgrinder, etc and also "entertainment apps" like mplayer, moc or fbi, which surely will push memory usage above 128MB in the end, I wanted to keep the "backbone", the operating system itself, below the 128MB to have the majority of my RAM available for "user activity".)

rokyo, you seem to be confusing WM/DE and Xorg itself.
i assume you want to achieve a multimonitor setup without a graphical server (Xorg, Wayland) at all?

(probably not possible to do any multimedia then.)