dual head x2x setup howto?

[Apreche]

Ok, I've got me a GeForce FX5900 card with a dvi out and a vga out. I have two monitors, an lcd connected by dvi and a crt connected by vga. I want to set up X in a configuration where gdm will start up with a seperate login on each monitor. I want to run ion on the crt and xfce4 on the lcd. And I want x2x to work so that I can move the mouse from one screen to the other and that the keyboard will automatically send things to the screen the mouse is on.

Presently the only X configuration I can make work with both monitors is with twinview. Twinview just makes my desktop big and wide. And I lose some space because both monitors are not the same resolution, so things go off screen that shouldn't be. Does anyone have a setup like I described above? How do you do it?

[Z?]

I haven't tried this specifically, but it should be possible to configure a different ServerLayout for each head (display). So instead of something like this in your XF86Config:

[Apreche]

two serverlayouts?? I'll try that and get back here when I do.

As for synergy, it looks like it does what x2x does, but I think it only works for having multiple computers. I have one computer with 2 x displays. I'll have to see if it supports that. I know x2x does.

Thanks.

[Z?]

I started thinking about my solution a bit more after I'd posted. I'm not so sure anymore if that'll actually work. I'm not entirely sure what effect the duplication of the mouse/keyboard entries would have, or if it'd even work at all... <sigh>

(edited to clarify the problems with my solution and to provide an alternate)

Problem 1: shared keyboard & mouse between the two instances probably won't work the way I was thinking...

Problem 2: the two instances of GDM will be on different VTs because of the display change (:0 and :1), which doesn't really solve your problem....

[Z?]

Maybe using a .xinitrc or .Xsession would do it? Start the different window managers on a different screens (:0.1 and :0.2)... something like this:

[Apreche]

yeah, that's pretty much what I want to do. But how does that work with gdm? And I still have to do something in the xf86config to configure the refresh rates of both of the monitors and to tell it that :0.1 is the crt and :0.2 is the lcd. I think this is going to require the help of an X expert (Xpert, lol). Soon I'm buying a new hard drive and a DVD burner. At that time I'll probably rearrange all my computer hardware, back up my data and start anew with operating systems. That's when I'll probably experiment with this more and start hunting for definite answers.

[Z?]

I'd be surprised if you can get gdm to present a login for each monitor, since that'd require two different instances of X, running on the same VT, outputting to the same video hardware...

But, anyway... I think I'm tapped out here. Maybe somebody else can help you find a solution.

[meowsqueak]

If you have two screens configured in your XF86Config, you do not need x2x or any 'third party' mouse/keyboard handlers. X will work fine as it is, even without xinerama.

[shira]

I've got two screen setup now, once 19" at 1280x1024 and a 15" at 1024x768
My experience with xinerama and mismatched screen resolutions was kinda shaky, it worked fine, but it was weird switching back and forth since they were difference sizes

with the setup I have now I have both screens defined so that I can't move between them:
screen 0 "screen1"
screen 1 "screen2"

I'm using x2x when I need to run things on the second screen, but I'm wondering if there's an easier way, perhaps some x command that will let me jump up to the second screen on command while still maintaining solid screen boundaries while I'm working

[shira]

any ideas?