Re: Separate X Screens - possible on Intel Integrated HD Graphics?

[Simon McVittie]

On 17/01/16 16:49, Ken Taylor wrote:
> On 01/17/2016 10:05 AM, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Sunday, January 17, 2016 08:10:38 AM [Michal] wrote:
>>> The usual pattern is that people ask about multiple screens but do not
>>> really want them. Having multiple screens only limits what you can do
>>> and gives you no meaningful benefits.
>>
>> On some of the industrial (process control) systems I've been
>> responsible for,
>> we put up to 4 monitors (with different displays) driven by one
>> computer in
>> front of a single operator.

Multiple heads/outputs/monitors do not have to imply multiple X11
'screens'. They can, but they don't have to, and it's very rare to
prefer multiple screens.

'Screen' is a jargon term in this context, like 'display' - I'm putting
it in quotes to be unambiguous. If all your applications run with
DISPLAY=:0, or equivalently DISPLAY=:0.0, you have one X11 'screen',
potentially outputting to multiple monitors. If some of your
applications run with DISPLAY=:0.1 and are permanently tied to a
different set of monitors (probably a set of size 1), *that* is a second
X11 'screen'.

If you have multiple LCD/CRT/whatever monitors on one desk, or a laptop
and a monitor, or a laptop and a projector, the option that is usually
preferred is a single X11 'screen' spanning multiple monitors, with
optional runtime switching between mirroring (same content on each
output) and non-mirroring (different content on each output). That's
what Xrandr normally does on modern systems, and as far as I'm aware,
what all current desktop environments optimize for. It's also the X11
equivalent of all the supported arrangements in Windows and OS X.

For instance, on the laptop where I'm typing this (with Intel HD
graphics, as it happens), here's what my output looks like:

|--|
| monitor  |||
|  || laptop |
|--|||

DISPLAY :0 --- screen :0.0 /-- HDMI2 --- monitor
   \-- LVDS1 --- laptop

The equivalent with multiple 'screens':

DISPLAY :0 /-- screen :0.0 --- HDMI2 --- monitor
   \-- screen :0.1 --- LVDS1 --- laptop

would mean I wouldn't be able to drag windows to and from the laptop, or
copy and paste between the two screens, and I don't have enough
historical X11 knowledge to know whether I'd need a second keyboard and
mouse for that setup.

>> I have to admit that the Linux / X window (and successor) terminology
>> confurses me--when I say multiple screens, I mean multiple monitors
>> driven by
>> a single PC and different content on each, and, ideally (but not
>> always the
>> case) the ability to move content between displays and copy and paste
>> to and
>> from each.

It sounds as though rhkramer may be one of the people Michal is thinking
of, who has been confused by the unfortunate historical terminology,
does want multiple monitors, but does not necessarily want multiple of
the historical X11 construct whose jargon term is 'screen'.

> I appreciate the vote of confidence.  Perhaps "separate X screens" is
> something which only a small percentage of user are multi-tasking enough
> to take advantage of. However, I am one of them.

From other emails, it sounds as though you (for disambiguation: Ken) are
one of the minority that genuinely does want multiple X11 'screens',
with no copy/paste between them, and no ability to move windows between
them. I'm not sure how this actually improves your experience when
multi-tasking when compared with a Xrandr-style large 'screen' spanning
multiple monitors, but "you asked for it/you got it"[1].

However, this is a sufficiently small minority that it seems reasonable
to ask "are you *sure* this is really what you're looking for?" when
someone asks for it, because it's fairly common for people who are
confused by the terminology to think they want multiple (jargon)
'screens' for their multiple (non-jargon) screens, even though that
leads to reduced functionality.

If your goal is to have immovable displays appearing on particular
monitors, that's also possible to achieve within a single 'screen' by
modifying or configuring a window manager or compositor to place windows
where you want them. (For instance, tiling window managers like
Awesome[2] tend to support this sort of thing.)

-- 
Simon McVittie
Collabora Ltd. 

[1] the lesser-known opposite of WYSIWYG
[2] http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Using_Multiple_Screens

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Re: Separate X Screens - possible on Intel Integrated HD Graphics?

[Felix Miata]

Ken Taylor composed on 2016-01-18 06:36 (UTC-0500):

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> Ken Taylor composed on 2016-01-17 11:49 (UTC-0500):

>>> Ultrasharp 19:10 aspect ratio

>> Typo, right? If not, what's the model number?

> No typo. U2414 - look it up.

I tried looking it up first. I found only U2414H, a 23.8" 16:9, to be as
close as I could find. Most widescreen Dells I've ever seen are either 16:9
(1.778/1=HDTV), 21:9 (2.333/1) or 16:10 (1.600/1=PC), with the vast majority
being 16:9. 19:10 (1.900/1) would be news to me.

> What does this have to do with the original question about Intel graphics?

Not a thing, only intrigued that Dell instead of Samsung or Apple might be
first to offer yet another aspect ratio.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/
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Re: Separate X Screens - possible on Intel Integrated HD Graphics?

[rhkramer]

You're welcome!

On Sunday, January 17, 2016 11:49:42 AM you wrote:
> Thanks rhkramer,
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Re: Separate X Screens - possible on Intel Integrated HD Graphics?

[Ken Taylor]

On 01/18/2016 12:06 AM, Michal Suchanek wrote:

On 17 January 2016 at 17:49, Ken Taylor  wrote:

On 01/17/2016 10:05 AM, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks rhkramer,

I appreciate the vote of confidence.  Perhaps "separate X screens" is
something which only a small percentage of user are multi-tasking enough to
take advantage of. However, I am one of them. I do appreciate assistance and
suggestions from other users as to how to accomplish what I am working on.
I do not necessarily appreciate being told I do not want to do what I want
to do.

As to a HUGE monitor... I had thought about that. I could run 4 virtual
machines each taking up 1/4 of the display.  But I just purchases two nice
Dell 24" Ultrasharp 19:10 aspect ratio monitors. The left one is vertical
and the right one horizontal. The vertical one is usually divided in half -
Thunderbird on the top half and a virtual machine connected to my secure
email at protonmail.ch on the bottom. I call up Firefox when I need it over
top of the two or I may switch to another workspace first. On the right
monitor I often have several things going on 3 or 4 workspaces.

Well, I use multiple monitors with single X screen in pretty much the
same way - except I can put any of the virtual desktops on any of the
monitors.

Since you have one portrait and one landscape monitor moving the
virtual desktops between the two will probably not be flawless. Still
that does not mean you need to configure the X server in such a way it
is impossible - you can just not do it.

As has been pointed out the Zaphod options should give you multiple X
screens but since next to nobody uses these there may be issues. In
fact, the very article you linked lists multiple issues when using
multiple monitors with separate screens.

Thanks

Michal


I guess I will just stick with Nvidia cards and ignore the Intel graphics

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Re: Separate X Screens - possible on Intel Integrated HD Graphics?

[rhkramer]

I just came across an article on Linux Journal that mentions a program named 
x2x which might be helpful.  The mention of x2x is on the third page of the 
article, and I've included one quotation:

Build a Large-Screen Command Center with 
the RPi 2 

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/build-large-screen-command-center-
rpi-2?page=0,2_source=phplist11_medium=email_content=text_campaign=LinuxCounter%20Newsletter%202016%2F01

I guess I could mention that the article deals with two (large) monitors 
driven by separate Raspberry Pis runniing, essentially, Debian (Raspian)--now 
read the quote above.


With x2x, you can move the mouse (and keyboard focus) from one RPi to the 
other, one monitor to the other, as though the screens were attached to a 
single computer. It's fast and seamless. 


I've just barely skimmed the article, so I make no promises / endorsements--
just something that might be helpful.

On Monday, January 18, 2016 03:55:38 PM you wrote:
> I used to do this with gnome 2 using nvidia's --separate-x-screen
> option, it didn't require a second keyboard and mouse. The reason I used
> to do this is so that I could change virtual desktops / workspaces
> independently per screen, ie screen 1 was on virtual desktop 3 and
> screen 2 was on virtual desktop 4, I could then change screen 2 to be on
> virtual desktop 1 without effecting screen 1. I found this more useful
> then being able to drag windows between screens. Unfortunately modern
> DE's often don't support this well as it involves running two instances
> of the display manager at the same time. In my case I found that
> enlightenment has this behavior without running separate x screens so I
> use that instead now.
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