In running a retail application, I have need of displaying information on a monitor (aka a screen saver with promotional pics) , while running a "inventorying system" that uses a barcode scanner and needs no visual display.

I have only one monitor out, and i have barcode scanner in the ps2 port. essentially, i want the screen saver running on display 0 (lcd panal) and the inventory system that uses lynx on a "hidden" display with the keyboard working only on that " hidden" display. (so it does not interrupt the screensaver)

i went through the man pages for a lynx and xscreensaver and X itself and i think it is possible, but i don't see how i can "separate" the monitor and use the keyboard for input on the " hidden" display with lynx running.

any insights or help would be greatly appriecated, you guys on here are great helping me out of several little stupid problems.

By curiosity, how can you see what you type with a hidden display ?

don't need too there is no "keyboard" but there is a barcode scanner hooked up to the ps2 port, its for "counting inventory"
scan the product, adds it to the total. but i want the lcd to run a screensaver promting our business.

I wonder how do you do some interactivities with the barcode scanner and lynx so...

You could use another application than a screensaver, a soft which display your graphics in full screen in foreground

i could but it does not need to be that complicated, plus if i have a programming running on "top" of lynx, then it has priority over the keyboard, which needs to be on lynx.

so if i could say tie the keyboard and mouse to "display 1" (which isn't really there) and have the screensaver on "display 0" which is the existing monitor ( i know you can specify displays for the xscreensaver ) but i want to know if i can "simulate" a dual display monitor but have the keyboard and mouse tied to the simulated one.

so no one knows how to direct to different screens???

I guess you could use 'screen', but I have another idea. Why not use the opera browser in quiosk mode.
You might also use the 'nested' X server.

can you explain?

can you explain?

or maybe you could login to tty2 and start your program there and then from there start X on display 0.
I don't know how to use screen, but someone on the forum does.
Opera lets you run a 'slide show' in full-screen mode which can be toggled on/off with F11 key.