I am trying to have multiple patricians made on my monitors that will fit working desktops. Is there a way to do this?
I don't want to use a desktop switcher or a cube I would like all of the virtual desktops to be seen at once and at the size that I choose for each virtual desktop. Plus if I want or need to open the virtual desktop or file to full screen size I can. As far as I could find all Linux Distros have the ability to switch between virtual desktops, and with windows the closest thing I can find in software that I am looking for is are windows programs called actual virtual desktops, actual multiple monitors, and actual windows manager.
This would make research much easier. Say two virtual desktops split vertically on one monitor and three virtual desktops on the second monitor split in one large partition and two smaller ones. All five virtual desktops visible at once and each a separate desktop.
Is this possible?
Thank you
Jonnynitro138

Not to my knowledge.

The problem is that you would squeeze the horizontal workspace. If you had 4 workspaces, then only 1/4 of the screen could be used for a display - with all windows compressed into that vertical slice. Not very usable - the windows would be very hard to read, and any menus displayed even harder.

I believe you CAN have multiple monitors with different workspaces though. I seem to recall it being an option in some Gnome kits (might be in Mate).

Not to my knowledge either.
I do run two X sessions on my desktop though, having separate panels and desktop icons (should I want them) for each. I have also run separate desktop environments on each monitor but that took some playing.
The above required the NVIDIA driver and I have no experience of using other graphics hardware in such a way.

It should work as long as you have two displays. It shouldn't require just the NVIDIA cards, any video device with two outputs should be capable. It SHOULD work even if you have two video cards, though it MIGHT require the same driver for both.

I have been close with a USB framebuffer - but I had a separate X server to drive it. What I want is a separate display/mouse/keyboard set for use as a second login station. I don't have the correct mouse+keyboard set bound to the second X server, and not have them grabbed by the primary.

You need to run separate X sessions for this. It should be possible on almost any DE, but I've only done it on Gnome 2 and XFCE myself. One X session per monitor, each with its own set of workspaces that can be moved through independently.

Yup. I just have to get a suitable USB keyboard/mouse combo (well, with a USB hub as well). I was able to test the display and get things on it (glxgears was one), but without a mouse/keyboard couldn't move the windows afterwards. But it proved it could be done.

It is possible for example with the i3 tiling WM to assign specific workspaces to different monitors, but you will still only be able to display one workspace per monitor.
But it may be possible if you combine i3 (or a similar WM) with nested X servers, like Xephyr or XNest, so that you can tile different X sessions on one monitor.

So far as I understand what you are asking for and so far as I understand what xnest is documented as doing, you seem to be asking for xnest.

I have installed xnest and I did not figure out how to invoke it correctly (how to get a desktop running inside xnest). But I'm sure that is my fault, not something wrong with xnest. I'm sure one can run another destop inside xnest.

I've used it for testing. It works - I was testing a new session manager with login (actually an extension of xdm). It works. The only difficulty with using it as nested desktop is getting the appropriate security keys set in the X authority.

Then you might find that you can't cut and past between xnest servers... I couldn't - but that was a while ago and they may have extended it to include cut/paste from separate X servers.

One problem I had with it is that the size of the window determines the size of the workspace, so unless you into scrolling around a pane larger than the display, it just makes for a rather small display (1/2 of a 1920x1080 display would be 960x1080 (or less).

Not that much room for a workspace.

If you use the kde desktop you can open up 4 or 5 different virtual windows and go to the top left corner
of the screen with the mouse pointer and look at all 5 at the same time.

Thank you all for the great input and time.
The reason that I am trying to do this is so that I can check my databases through different browsers and settings to make sure anybody can open and use them. With scrolling and cube desktops I am having problems with burying windows and programs; but mostly and the most annoying, is that when a program finishes what is is doing every dang system feels that it is necessary to stop everything you are doing to announce that the program is finished. I am a bit of a spackle head so when I am witting and I get flung away from the script I am trying to write and have to bring my attention away from a finished program I have to start the process of writing all over. With separate desktops that don't flip scroll to the side or expand across the monitors so that I can choose which one I want to be on then I can focus more attention to what I am doing. I don't mind that on the smaller size desktops the script and icons will be to small to read as long as when I need to I can open the desktop to full screen (monitor size), then put it back down to smaller size again.
I am looking at xnet now to see if this is what I am looking for. I do have a nvidia card, gtx geforce 460 v2. As far as the operating system that I am using... doesn't really matter I'll change mine if I must.
Again thank you
Jonnynitro138

Okay I guess it does matter which os that I am using. I am using linuxmint 16. How do I use xnest?
Jonnynitro138

I hope you are willing to share a cookbook version of instructions for doing that (or point us to an existing set of cookbook instructions).

I am not at the level of competence at which the man page of xnest gives me any clue how to use it. I expect the OP is slightly further from being able to use that man page.

It is a lot easier to learn from examples rather than generalities. That is especially true when we can fall back on the man page. Given a working example with commands and options one can look up the commands and options to generalize the knowledge.

I'm sure (and you pretty much said) it is possible to get xnest opened with a login screen (such as gdm) so one could log into it and get the selected desktop (gnome, kde, etc.). That is how I want to use it and maybe how the OP wants to and I think how you did:

What are the commands to launch all that?

I don't know whether there is one giant xnest command to launch it with gdm inside or one giant command to launch gdm using a new instance of xnest or whether you use a command to open an empty xnest (which is easy) then give (what?) command to launch the gdm greeter inside that display.

I expect it is also possible to skip re logging in and launch gnome or kde etc. inside the xnest. Maybe that is what the OP wants to do. Likely that is more a gnome or kde question than an xnest question, but to a non expert it can feel like an xnest question and anyway I don't know the answer.

I type so slowly (and was interrupted while typing), that was posted while I was typing. It helps a little, especially if I wanted to know how to run simple X applications directly inside xnest without involving another desktop. I ought to play with that for learning purposes, but the OP seems to want a desktop inside xnest and the applications inside the desktop, rather than applications directly inside xnest.

When I was testing my extended xdm, the xdm code itself would start the designated x server, and set up the keys.

The link above has the simple start of the xnest server: xnest -ac

After that you put applications in the server with "appname -display :1"

Selecting the xnest display is by the :<number> display. IF display 1 is already in use, xnest will use the first available one, but normally, only one display is active (using the user switcher will create another one).

You should even be able to attch window managers to the display the same way.