I have a PC with two video cards (GeForce 7900 GT x 2). I am trying to setup two shells that will each access one of the video card devices exclusively. My questions are:

1. Is this possible?
2. Can someone point me in the right direction regarding how to create a shell as well as setting up the video card for exclusive use by that shell?

yes it is possible, i remember an old system i had with a hercules card that took over the teminals 12-14, and even ran as a second head for the X server.

I would imagine you set up the both cards with indepedant XF86 config files, and start in runlevel 3. then launch X twice with its own config for each card. finally .xinitrc should check which card it is running under before starting a shell (xterm) according to your needs.

you know a shell doesn't need a video card, you can run thousands of them?

otherwise use another machine to log in, if you just want a terminal.

Try to define what do you want to do without using technical terminology, Your post as is doesn't make much sense. Shells are not connected to video cards in any way. They run at a much higher level.

If you mainly run X, then you just need to configure X correctly. You don't need two configuration files. You can have as many video cards and monitors in xorg and use them at all the same time.

nvidia-settings might help you in that task (it should be already installed if you are using the nvidia propietary driver, if not, first install the driver).

i92guboj,

In response to your request

What I am trying to do is this:

I am trying to put together a single PC that will be able to capture and display 2 or more simultaneous streams of video to an HD capable TV. The cards that I have support component out. I am just trying to figure out how to do this in linux. I thought running the two applications in separate shells or XTerm sessions might make more sense. In any case any input would be appreciated.

I assume you already have an hdtv capable capturer that will work under linux.

First, note that I haven't tested hdtv. Mostly because I lack the needed hardware. However, a display device is a display device, and an hdtv shouldn't mean any difference at all, as long as your card is able to handle it.

If you want to attach a single screen (hdtv or whatever) to each video card then you just need to configure X as said. I would just plug them and use nvidia-settings. Try is and see if it can see both cards and monitors. If it works out of the box then we can worry about what do you want to display on each monitor later.

First thing first.