Running 2 Desktop Environments on 2 Different X-Servers

Audax321 · 02-20-2005, 08:18 AM

Hello,

I have a nVidia GeForce 6600GT running with dual heads across two monitors. When I turn my computer on, I get a KDE desktop (~/Desktop) on Screen[0]. Then KDE puts another desktop (~/Desktop1) on Screen[1]. I can switch between monitors by running my mouse to the edge of one screen. The mouse then just goes onto the other screen.

The way it is set up is running two X servers on each monitor (not using xinerama and not using twinview). The way I want this to work is to have Screen[0] display KDE (~/Desktop). And have the second screen, Screen[1], run TWM and be able to switch between the two easily.

So basically, the nvidia driver is telling me that I have two X-Servers running. One is called :0.0 and the other is :0.1. What I want to do is tell KDE to stop using :0.1 to display an additional desktop and tell TWM to run on :0.1.

Is this possible?

Thanks.

Lechio · 02-20-2005, 06:49 PM

yes there is.
It envolves starting X from a tty. That's what i'm doing here, dunnno if
there is a better solution. From a shell do xinit -- :1.1 &
it will open an xsession on xserver 1 screen 1. Then start kde from there with the startkde command.
It will only load a KDE desktop. go to the tty session by pressing ctrl+alt+F1 and do xinit -- :1.0
it will open an xsession on xserver 1 screen 0, start the other DE/WM from there.

Audax321 · 02-20-2005, 10:13 PM

Lechio,

I just gave that a try and it didn't work although it should. When I do xinit -- :1.1 I get an xsession on xserver 1 screen 1 with that characteristic gray pattern and a xterm window on it. The other screen, however, also has the same pattern on it. After typing startkde the ~/Desktop loads on Screen[0] and ~/Desktop1 loads on Screen[1]. Then I press ctrl+alt+F1 to get back to tty1 and type xinit -- :1.0. After typing this I get an error message stating that display 1 is already in use (and it is by KDE).

I tried reversing the steps and doing exec twm -display :1.1 first. But, that ended with similar results. I don't understand why this is not working. Do you think you could post your /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers and /etc/X11/xorg.conf files so I can compare them to mine?

If you have any other suggestions let me know...

Thanks.