From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Kon4p-0005mm-ME for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:48 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A63CFE036A; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F60BE036A for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 438C064E8B for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:45 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -3.325 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.325 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=0.274, BAYES_00=-2.599, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW=-1] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id nWfUGCscSJqK for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:39 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ciao.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.229.2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7920064BB6 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:38 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1Kon4X-0002xA-A8 for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:29 +0000 Received: from 67-220-10-21.usiwireless.com ([67.220.10.21]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:29 +0000 Received: from grante by 67-220-10-21.usiwireless.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:29 +0000 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: Grant Edwards Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: Xinerama vs TwinView for dual monitor setup Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:36:17 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <200810112334.10957.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 67-220-10-21.usiwireless.com User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.1pl1 (Linux) Sender: news Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org X-Archives-Salt: a45e104e-0923-4975-8a56-0797cdac798d X-Archives-Hash: 68fab12a7081a21e79df779d66ce43d0 On 2008-10-11, Alan McKinnon wrote: > My research into nvidia's docs leads me to believe that TwinView is designed > to make the presence of two physical monitors invisible and present one giant > X screen, with a funky API for dead spaces (which may or may not work). I'm > thinking Xinerama is the better option, despite the fact that it's old, > clunky, hopeless at dealing with XRandR and can't be changed on the fly. I'm > happy to set up two ServerLayouts to deal with this. > > I'd appreciate some pros and cons feedback from the list before I embark on a > huge emerge -e world to include Xinerama support. There's a third option you haven't mentioned: two different displays rather than a large virtual display spread across two monitors. After reading up on the options, it's what I chose to do. Cons: * You can't drag a window from one display to the other. * Windows can't overlap from one display to the other. * 3D HW accel and HW video overlay only available on one of the displays. Pros: * Mouse movement and focus still act like one large display. * Each display can have it's own set of virtual desktops and they can be switched indpendantly. * Things like window-manager panels/docs/taskbars are managed separately for the two displays. * Displays can have different resolutions, sizes, depths. I particularly like having multiple virtual desktops for each display and being able to independanly toggle the displays among their virtual desktops. Once in a while I wish I could drag a window from one display to the other, but not very often. -- Grant