Another X sever on a second display

squirrel-the-tire · 10-01-2009, 05:35 PM

I know you can have GNOME running, and run KDE on vt9 like this:
press ctrl+alt+2 to switch to virtual terminal 2,
login
xinit -- :1 vt9
startKDE -- :1 vt9
And then you would be able to press ctrl+alt+F7 to go to GNOME, and ctrl+alt+F9 to switch to KDE.

But is there a way to run another X server in a second display, for example: Run GNOME on one monitor, and KDE on the other?

I have an ATI All-in-wonder card, (Pretty much a Radeon 9600 with extra featurs), with the fglrx driver. Running Ubuntu 8.10 (ATI is too lazy to improve their drivers for 9.04)

somedude · 10-01-2009, 05:50 PM

I don't think you can run more than one instance of the graphical server (X), but you may be able to assign a monitor for each window manager.

squirrel-the-tire · 10-02-2009, 01:16 PM

I want to run GNOME on one monitor, and KDE on the other.

i92guboj · 10-02-2009, 01:39 PM

It depends only in how well do gnome and kde behave. For example, I have a dual setup without xrandr and I have no problem to run fvwm in one monitor and openbox in the other.

But first, you need to setup X so it doesn't use xrandr, xinerama or any of that stuff.

For fglrx, you need to do this to disable xrandr (and this is only for fglrx):

Code:

# aticonfig --set-pcs-str="DDX,EnableRandR12,FALSE"

You can verify that it worked this way:

Code:

# grep RandR /etc/ati/amdpcsdb
EnableRandR12=SFALSE

If everything is right, then you need to setup your xorg.conf for a dual head setup. This is mine as a guide:

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
        Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
        Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[0]-1" LeftOf "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
#       Option "Xinerama" "false"
EndSection

Section "Files"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/corefonts"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/dejavu"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hunkyfonts"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/intlfonts"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/liberation-fonts"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
        FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/terminus"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
#       Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-1"
#       Option       "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
        Driver      "fglrx"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option                  "ForceMonitors" "notv"
        Option                  "MonitorLayout" "CRT,DFP"
        Option                  "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-1"
        Driver      "fglrx"
        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option                  "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"
        Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
        Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
        Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Modes "1600x1200"
                Depth     24
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-1"
        Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-1"
        Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-1"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Modes "1680x1050"
                Depth     24
        EndSubSection
EndSection

I launch X via startx, so it honors ~/.xinitrc, the two relevant lines in my .xinitrc file are these:

Code:

DISPLAY=:0.1 openbox > ${HOME}/logs/openbox.log 2>&1 &
fvwm -s 0 > ${HOME}/logs/fvwm.log 2>&1

The concrete syntax will depend on the WM's/DE's involved. I have no idea if startkde and gnome-session support this feature. First check if they have some command line switch to specify the screen or display, if not, try to set the DISPLAY var as in my example. If that doesn't work, you will have to dive into the startkde and/or gnome-session script(s) and see what's inside.