Dual Monitors with Kde4
 

I have to admit, I was a bit of sceptic about Kde4, but after a while of using it, it's not that much to complain about, of course some things are different, some requires more configurations, some missing, but nothing really that I can't live without. There is only one thing that actually doesn't work the way I would like it to, such is, dual monitors. No matter how many different configs I tried, I can not get "Separate X screen" to work. I've got two Lcd's, dual head Nvidia card, driver 173.14.20. One of these work just fine, but the other one has a black screen and X for the mouse cursor and nothing else.
If there is no workaround to get it done, twinview will be a substitute for a while.

There is also one more thing that I've always wanted to try, two screens under CLI, with ability to switch between them, with keyboard shortcut, the way you switch between consoles Alt+F1..F2..etc.
Is there a way to do it ?
Thank you in advance

Thx

KDE4 does *not* support separate X screens. You'll either have to give up on KDE4 or use twinview.

Do you have definitive proof of this? Please provide links or further information, because I really don't understand why it would work in KDE3 but NOT work in KDE4.

If by the above, you mean, have both monitors working while in VT mode, then this is not possible by default, because of the nature/design of the kernels' framebuffer code.

There are some projects and some patches out there, which can allow you to get something along this functionality, but I haven't looked too deeply into it. I have wanted to have this functionality for a LONG time, and have researched everywhere, to no avail. An inquiry I made about this about 2 years ago, on nVidia's Linux Forum, got zero replies.

Also, if TwinView is not giving you the arrangement you desire (or Xinerama for that matter, which I use with perfect success), for your dual monitors in X, please tell us exactly what functionality you are looking for in a dual-monitor setup. Many of us, myself included, have been using multiple monitors for a long time under KDE and other WM's, so there's a good chance that there's an arrangement that will suit you.

Best regards,
Sasha

Google is your friend :-)


http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/X.Org...ead_in_KDE_4.2

http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f...tart=10#p67106

EDIT:

Perhaps I was a bit abrupt with my options above. You can certainly use KDE4, but only on one monitor. You will need to use a separate window manager on the other screen.

Adam

That's just plain incorrect, regardless what those links tell you (and I haven't gone to read them -- YET).

I'll produce a screenshot for you in a few moments, provided I can shrink it enough to upload it as an attachment.

Please stand by.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3668656

Have a look. I think this shows that we can indeed use KDE4 on both monitors, and in more than one configuration, though this is my preferred configuration, using Xinerama.

Sasha

PS - also note, I am currently using XFCE for the most part, so the taskbar in KDE is not configured very much. In XFCE, I have it to show minimized windows on their respective sides of the taskbar, whereas on KDE, I just logged in to make this screenshot, and the taskbar is not really configured.

I'm not sure what you intended to link to, but I don't think it's what you did link to. That's a thread with posts by various people (none called GrapefruiTgirl)

EDIT:

Found it: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post3668656

You appear to be using twinview, right, because nvidia-settings only shows "X Screen 0" in it's control panel? This thread is about actual separate screens.

From the OP:

From me:

Second EDIT:

Sorry, I see your second post now about using xinerama, which is exactly what we *aren't* talking about on this thread :-)

Ok, I stand corrected, and enlightened :) and perhaps read too much into the initial question (Thanks adamk75 for holding your ground).

I can't get better than the OP has achieved. Both TwinView AND Xinerama work, but for whatever reason (I will read those links provided by adamk75, though as yet I'm inclined to blame it on X rather than KDE) I end up with the same situation as the OP -- a black screen with a X cursor on it, which moves around, but that's it!.

So, this brings me back to what I asked earlier: What is the OP looking for in a 2-X-screen setup, that cannot be achieved by using one of the WORKING methods?

Cheers!
Sasha

UPDATE - and I just read the links provided, and there's no real explanation for why it won't work. I.e., did they drop the functionality, or is just so broken that it plain doesn't work? I'll have to look into it more.

Yeah, it's a pretty sucky situation. Thankfully, xrandr 1.2 has been my preferred method of driving two monitors for a while now (similar to twinview, but for the open source drivers), and it works fine there. But it still sucks that they don't support this pretty basic functionality of Xorg.

Adam

Well, 2 panels and what's coming with it, separate Task Manager. When I open a window, firefox or any other program, I want it pop up on the monitor that I intended to open it on, 2 panels are not that big of a problem here, but then again, task managers show the same opened programs.

Ahh, am I ever glad to have found this post before installing Slack 13!
This is a deal breaker for me.
I was getting ready to upgrade next week and now it looks like I'll skip 13 until KDE fix this.

I have my main monitor 22" with resolution 1680x1050 and a 1080p tv as my second screen but it's in different part of the room so I don't see both screens side by side.
So TwinView with one big desktop would not work for me.
And besides, I could never get TwinView to work with monitors that have different resolutions.
When I tried TwinView, it always wanted to switch my TV to the same resolution as my 22" monitor.

TwinView may be ok for people that have two identical monitors side by side and are ok with one desktop.
But if you want to use X as it was originally intended, to feed multiple monitors to multiple users in a truly multi-user environment, then no, you need real independent xscreens.

I ran into the same situation with my NVidia card, but I came up with a fix that I actually like better than my former dual-head setup.

I have a 19" LCD widescreen as my main monitor directly in front of me, with a 19" CRT off to the left. Naturally, if I attempt to use these as a single big display, everything looks screwy and stretched out on one of the monitors.

If you fire up the nvidia-settings program, you can change some things to make it more like the deprecated dual-head setup. Under "X Server Display Configuration", you can adjust various information about your screen setup. The checkbox towards the bottom that says "Make this the primary display for the X screen" is what you're looking for.

Your primary display will have your standard task bar, menu, etc. The other display will just be an empty desktop (no task bar or menu). Any applications you open on your primary display can be dragged over to the secondary display without stretching or otherwise looking bad. All applications remain on the taskbar of the primary display, regardless of what screen they are on.

Additionally, the empty desktop on the secondary display retains that little plasma dialog box in the top right corner, so you can jazz it up with plasmoids. (If you haven't messed with those yet, check them out. I just figured out what "plasmoids" were a few days ago, and they are what makes this setup so cool).

I was really disappointed when I found out KDE4 didn't support a dual-head setup, and I thought it was going to be a deal breaker. However, this new setup is very cool and I'm glad I screwed around enough to figure it out :-)

Oh, almost forgot:
You must be using TwinView for this to work, NOT Xinerama. (Xinerama looks ugly with KDE4 anyway since it doesn't support hardware acceleration).

Well i have KDE and Gnome from openSUSE 11.2 run and i have a weird thing going on with the 2 different desktops.

Gnome sees the desktop as 3360x1050 all in one.

KDE sees the desktop as 2 1680x1050.

Take a look at the link and you will see my xorf and screen shots

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/g...ml#post2188236

It doesn't really bother me to much just wondering why when i know they are both reading the same xorf.conf file

I beg to differ.
The image is scaled down by half to satisfy upload requirements but display 0 is 1680x1050 and the TV is 1400x900. That's why there is a blank region i the upper section o the TV. Interestingly, full screen and maximize work on each display as if they were the only one yet the taskbar shows applications for all screens.

Are you sure they are seeing the desktop differently, and not just displaying themselves differently? What's the output of 'xdpyinfo -ext XINERAMA | grep head' under KDE and then GNOME?

Adam