On Sunday 26 June 2005 06.10, Stanley Long wrote:
Tim Hanson wrote:
I'm ready to take the plunge into double monitor-land. Intuition tells me that all I need to do is hang another video card into the chassis, hook up another monitor, fire it up, and configure it with sax2. Is it that easy?
Just about that easy, yes.
If you find an old PCI video card (or two), you can do a no-cost test. YAST doesn't care if you use different cards.
At about SuSE 8.2, YAST had a problem of not wanting to recognize the 2nd monitor if initially set up on just one head, even for dual head video cards. Also, it seems SuSE people mostly assume one always wants one wide display across both monitors. Xinerama does that combined display presentation.
CAD people want the largest possible screens for the CAD, and often prefer the separated 2nd screen for anything else that should be visible at the same time as the work layout. ie, web page catalog sheets for machinery, photographs of work being drawn, calculation tools, specification text, email or text files ...
Two separate screens (non-Xinerama) make FAST highlight-drag-n-drop transfers from one application into another. Yep, the curser carries the stuff across between monitors even though applications are limited to one or the other.
Matrox G-450/550 dual head AGP video works just fine here. Be aware that 2nd display has slower clock capability than the 1st display. http://www.varicad.com is rather useful, even if not OSS.
If two screens are not enough, try fvwm desktop w/ 6x2 virtual screens per monitor desktop and try sliding live apps from one virtual screen to an adjacent v.s.
I have been running triple head for quite some time now. (19"+19"+17") I have two graphicscards. One Matrox G400 DualHead (AGP) , and one Matrox Milleninum II (PCI) I use it for all my work (graphics, webdesign, plain surfing and chatting mostly) I have found the possibility of having for instance GIMP running in one virtual desktop with all the menus left-most, working image in the centre, and anything else i need temporarily (as docs etc) to my right, very handy and easy to work with. Also, if i look for information or is researching something on the net, i can have several windows open without having to switch between them. Sure ONE big monitor at say 1600x1200 is nice to have. But three x 1280x1024 is alot handier.. The only drawback is the space.. They take up a LOT of desktop. (I use "old" CRT monitors) I do have a new machine planned with three 16:10 Widescreen TFT's. I will of course report how that baby will be as soon as it is up. -- /Rikard " Sharing knowledge is the most fundamental act of friendship. Because it is a way you can give something without loosing something." -R. Stallman --------------------------------------------------------------- Rikard Johnels email : rikjoh@norweb.se Mob : +46 763 19 76 25 PGP : 0x461CEE56 ---------------------------------------------------------------