[Cialug] Can a dual-headed graphics card appear as 2 virtual consoles?

[Daniel A. Ramaley]

This was from awhile back, so i kept more of the thread than i would 
otherwise be inclined to, below my message...

To recap, i have 2 monitors running off of 1 graphics card. I want to 
get different window managers running on each display. Ideally, i'd 
have one screen on virtual terminal 7 (where X normally runs) and the 
other on VT8. I spent a couple hours playing with my X configuration 
this evening. I use GDM and the AfterStep window manager. I could 
switch out GDM if necessary (or not even use a display manager), but 
AfterStep will be pried out of my cold, dead hands. I hadn't decided 
what window manager to run on the second screen, but probably one of 
the bloatware desktop environments like KDE or Gnome.

Well, today i managed to cause X to hang in lots of random states 
requiring me to reset it via an SSH session. Previously X thought i had 
one big (double wide) screen. I was trying to get it so there would be 
2 separate copies of X running, one on the left screen and calling 
it :0 and the other on the right screen calling it :1. I couldn't get 
that to work; the 2 X's weren't happy running at the same time.

Now i've gotten it so just one copy of X is running, but there are 2 
separate screens:

On the left screen:
    $ echo $DISPLAY
    :0.0
On the right screen:
    $ echo $DISPLAY
    :0.1

When i start X, 2 copies of AfterStep run, one on each screen. The 
effect is... weird. I can move the mouse from one screen to the other. 
Each screen has its own Pager and own virtual desktops. I cannot drag 
programs between screens. If i try to run Firefox on both screens, the 
one i start second complains about another running instance and refuses 
to start.

I have found a way to force AfterStep to only run 1 copy of itself 
on :0.0. Now i need to figure out a way to get another window manager 
to run on :0.1. Any ideas? I was looking at KDE, but startkde doesn't 
take any arguments to tell it what $DISPLAY to run on.

On Monday February 18 2008 14:59, David Champion wrote:
>And another link on doing a multi-seat X thingy...
>
>http://linuxgazette.net/124/smith.html
>
>-dc
>
>David Champion wrote:
>> Here's some starter info on running multiple X sessions. It doesn't
>> cover binding the different monitors though. Let us know if you get
>> this working.
>>
>> http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/multiple-x.html
>>
>> -dc
>>
>> Daniel A. Ramaley wrote:
>>> I recently acquired a second monitor for my machine (running
>>> Debian), that i'll refer to as A and B. Both monitors are plugged
>>> into the same graphics card, and getting them to act as one wide
>>> desktop was quite easy. However, i'd rather they act as 2 separate
>>> virtual consoles. Right now the machine effectively has 7 virtual
>>> consoles. 1-6 are text-mode only and only display on monitor A. 7
>>> is X Windows and spans both A and B. Is it possible to make 1-7
>>> appear on A, and have a separate X session on B as console 8?
>>>
>>> So then if i hit ctrl-alt-F7 the keyboard/mouse will control X
>>> running on monitor A, and when i hit ctrl-alt-F8 the keyboard/mouse
>>> will switch to be controlling a separate X session on monitor B.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Ramaley                            Dial Center 118, Drake University
Network Programmer/Analyst             2407 Carpenter Ave
+1 515 271-4540                        Des Moines IA 50311 USA