Multiple monitor / video card desktop (Mint 14, Xfce)
 

Hi.

I've been working on getting Linux Mint running and have been really having a time with getting my multi-monitor setup working like I want it to.

The hardware:

Nvidia 550TI with 2 24" monitors, landscaped
NVidia 430 with 1 19" monitor, portrait
Intel Sandy Bridge quadcore (hyperthreaded)

The software:

Mint 14 (3.5) (Xfce)
Nvidia experimental 310 driver
ARandR / XRandR

I can get all three monitors operating as one desktop under Xfce using Twin Monitor on the 550/2x24" and Xinerama on the 430/19". However, I want my 430/19" in portrait orientation to serve as a reader, but I can't get
ARandR to pick it up.

Given that I can rotate either screen on my 550/2x24" just fine, I could drive my 19" with the 550 and put a 24" on the 430. However, since I'm most likely to run one window across my two 24" screens (and leave the 19" entirely separate), it's preferable to have one video card doing all the heavy graphics work, instead of splitting it across two cards of different gens / models.

That said, I have tried running other window managers which I'm told do a better job of supporting multi-monitor setups (like OpenBox), but they don't play well with Xfce. I'm certain it's just a few hours of googling to figure it out, but before I commit to that, I'll ask this first:

Is there a preferred / ideal combination of linux distro / desktop / window manager to handle more complex multi-monitor setups like this?

Probably the best way to get that going the way you want is editing your xorg.conf with the specific detail for each adapter,
Here some links that might help:
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/modi...er-performance
http://http.download.nvidia.com/XFre...DME/index.html
http://http.download.nvidia.com/XFre...880/README.txt

Regards

After some more research, it would appear what I need is a way to use hot keys to switch between screens - some way to switch between the sessions that the Nvidia X server creates. It appears at one time Nvidia was trying to implement that and it didn't pan out. In any case, it seems the functionality doesn't exist...

As it stands, I can start applications on my third monitor, but I've no way to actually use that desktop (without using Xinerama, anyway).