After messing around with TwinView without much success, I switched over to a multiple screens approach for my TV-out, with more success. But I'd like to find out whether I can run different window managers on the two screens attached to my nvidia.

First the setup: I've got an MSI Geforce4 Ti4200 card with TV-out, connected to a NEC
flatscreen and a TV. The XF86Config-4 file looks as follows (well, the relevant bits, that
is):

# Graphics Card
# =============
Section "Device"
Identifier "Nvidia LCD"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Nvidia TV"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

# Monitors
# ========
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "LCD"
HorizSync 28-50
VertRefresh 43-75
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "MyTV"
HorizSync 30-50
VertRefresh 60
EndSection

# Screens
# =======
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen LCD"
Device "Nvidia LCD"
Monitor "LCD"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen TV"
Device "Nvidia TV"
Monitor "MyTV"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "800x600"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubSection
EndSection

# Server Layout
# =============
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "TwoScreens Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen LCD"
Screen 1 "Screen TV" RightOf "Screen LCD"
InputDevice "Logitech Keyboard"
InputDevice "Logitech Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

This works, but with a few quirks. First of all, when I run kde3.1 on it, my LCD displays a configured kde, and the tv shows a default, and unconfigurable kde (e.g. the configure panel window doesn't actually do anything). When I try other WM's such as icewm and ratpoison, the TV image remains a bare X, although things like mplayer file.avi -display :0/1work like a charm.

Now I found some references to running two window managers on the same card, one
for each screen, which might solve that problem, but how do I actually do this? Adapting the .xinitrc file, I suppose.

Secondly, before I log into X, the TV display is black, but after I've logged out of an X
session, the TV keeps flickering, sometimes in B&W, sometimes in color. This means
something is still sending signals (even if garbage) to the TV. How can I avoid this?

And last but not least: occasionally when I log out of X, the keyboard locks up. Maybe
the entire system hangs, I don't know, I haven't got another machine haning on it to
try a remote login. This is very annoying, since it means having to reset the machine.
Does anyone know what is causing this, and more importantly, how I can avoid it?

In the documentation for the nvidia drivers there is a section what talks about how to use Dualhead with their card and it talks about using 2 seperate desktops or clone.... I forget what is option is called but if you go to nvidias website and look at the documentation its towards the end in onfe of the appendicies.

As for the flcikering problem I have the same thing happening and I have TWO seperate GFX cards.... and the one screen just flickers alot... kinda odd IF you ask me..... maby there is a setting to shut down the other desktop then exit xwindows?? I dunno I am curoius to find a solution for that as well