Hello, all.

I am using the rdesktop program to connect to a Windows 2003 Server installation hosted on a server here at the office. The program works fine and has for quite some time, but now, we are issuing second monitors to everybody in the building. The dual monitors work fine in Linux (Ubuntu 8.04), but that capability does not transfer over to the remote desktop connection when I use rdesktop. Will rdesktop support running multiple monitors with the 2k3 Server setup? Right now, rdesktop loads full screen on the left monitor, and the right monitor just stays at the Ubuntu desktop.

Thank you very much for any help.

You may want to play around with the settings, for example, if you have two monitors that run at 1024x768 each, then you have a total screen area of 2048x1536. You can run rdesktop from the command line (and of course make an icon out of this command) like this, to specify the geometry:

rdesktop ip.addr.goes.here -g 2048x1536

Of course, you'll wan't to reduce the screen area used a bit if you want to leave room for the local machines taskbars, panels, etc.

However, if you're trying to get it to run in total full screen mode, ex:

rdesktop ip.addr.goes.here -f

..And you're only getting results as described, then heck, I would like to know the solution to this too. What distro of Linux are you using, and what window manager (Gnome, Kde, etc.)? When I pass the -f command, I usually get the WinTerminal with the login screen centered so as the plastic borders on the two monitors cut it in half, lol.

Best Regards,

-Bryan

Ubuntu 8.04 w/ Gnome. However, it seems the problem lied in the fact that I did a horrible job of configuring the video card with aticonfig. Now it is all settled. I almost feel ashamed that it took me two days to figure out such a simple mistake.

Now I've moved on to another problem, haha. Nothing ever works out the way you want it to.

I don't even think the native Windows Remote Desktop client even supports dual monitors itself.

It does. They have to have the same resolution though, and according to Microsoft.com, "the total resolution on all monitors must be under 4096 x 2048 pixels."

So wait, is the limitation of the 4096x2048 resolution in the client or the server, and if the client, does rdesktop support higher, and if so, anybody know what?

According to a post in an MSDN topic I found, the limit is in the video buffer, so there isn't any escaping it. A poster in that topic stated he was using rdesktop from Linux to connect to an XP machine, and he was being limited at the same 4096x2048. Here's the thread:

http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coff...emote-desktop/

According to another site I found though, rdesktop allows you to work with custom resolutions, so it has at least a slight lead on the proprietary Windows client.

Most open source software has advantages over proprietary in the fact that if you can code, you can modify, fix, improve, etc. Unfortunately I am just beginning coding. I find Windows has certain limitations that are down right rediculous. I dual boot, but at all costs use Wine (API) or VMWare (Virtualization) or something for my desktops, and for servers, forget it. It's Linux all the way.

I wasn't aware of the dual monitor setup licensing terms; meaning, can you legally use one TS access license? My issue is that most of my clients use compiz-fusion to get the functionality of 2 (4 actually (cube plugin)) monitors but usually connect two times and put the seperate rdesktop windows on different faces of the cube... so they have paid for 2 TS licenses per workstation using this functionality... There were other issues however that caused me to have to do this.

-Bryan

For our purposes, our only goal was to ensure that we had two monitors. So we're just rolling with one large desktop. There's no dragging windows between different monitors and maximizing them the way Windows would normally. If you maximize, it covers both monitors. We aren't all that worried about getting the same dual monitor support that you'd get if you were normally sitting right in front of the 2k3 Server machine. But it would certainly be nice. If you ever find a cost-effective solution, please inform me. It would be a great help. But I'm afraid we're no further along than you are at this point.

Does anyone know if the native Windows TS Client have the ability to use dual monitors as if you were at the physical machine?