Greetings!

Currently I run 3 17" monitors from my main workstation.

Gentoo 2.6.x (Built From 2004.1 Stage 3 AthlonXP)
XFree86 (Latest Stable)
KDE 3.2.2

In my home directory there is the normal "Desktop" folder that contains all the files for the primary monitor, there is also;

/home/foo/Desktop1
/home/foo/Desktop2
The above are folders containing files for the second and third monitor.


Due to these 3 "Desktop" directory's each has a unique config. i.e.

Shortcuts / Files on my primary monitor's desktop do not appear on the other two monitors /obvious
Each panel (taskbar) has it's own config (Clock appearance is not synchronized, shortcuts on primary taskbar are not propagated to the other two desktops)


I would like to convert this setup into one "single" desktop, this would (hopefully) provide;

One taskbar running across the 3 monitors instead of 3 separate taskbars.
The ability to drag and drop an application window from monitor 1 to monitor 2 (currently not possible however the mouse does switch to the next monitor as I move the pointer to the edge of the screen)


Is this possible folks? I'm willing to consider dropping KDE if there is another Desktop Manager that will support my needs.


Any pointers / ideas appreciated ...... Thanks Folks!

Yes, there are different modes of multihead...


Traditional multihead — Each monitor represents an individual unit. The mouse pointer can switch between the screens.

Cloned multihead — In this mode, all monitors display the same contents. The mouse is only visible on the main screen.

Xinerama multihead — All screens combine to form a single large screen. Program windows can be positioned freely on all screens or scaled to a size that fills more than one monitor.

Thanks for the relpy DavePhillips, now it's working like a charm!

Just to close up the thread .......

Appending the xinerama flag to startx did the trick;

startx -- +xinerama


Cheers!

Cool, I've been wanting to try that. Guess I'll do it when I get home now that I have an extra video card and monitor.