Multihead Support in KDE 2.1

Wednesday, 7 February 2001 | Numanee

Bradley T Hughes has implemented multihead support for KDE 2.1, and is currently commiting the code. This is one fine feature masquerading as a bugfix but which should make a lot of people with multiple monitors quite happy.

Comments:

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Evan "JabberWokky" E. - 2001-02-07

Brad, you're my new hero! I can now use KFM (as opposed to my hacked BlackBox window manager), and have all the nice things like the desktop, Alt-F2 launch support, etc... ThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYou ThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYouThankYou Gonna go do some compilin' today... -- Evan

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - blob - 2001-02-07

I can now use KFM (as opposed to my hacked BlackBox window manager) Misnamigs aside, isn't that a bit ironic..:)

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Soknet - 2001-02-07

Where can I see a screenshot?O a diagram?

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Zeljko Vukman - 2001-02-07

Great :)

It is about time!! - Tim BRandt - 2001-02-07

This is a feature that kept my company from using KDE on our desktops. And now that we are entrechec in SawFish and Gnome It will probably stay that way. I really like KDE and KDE2 but I never understood why no multihead support.

Re: It is about time!! - Lenny - 2001-02-07

It's a pitty that gnome only ships as ROM-modules so you never ever are able to switch back to KDE without trashing your hardware.

Re: It is about time!! - emmanuel - 2001-02-07

what are you talking about???????????

Re: It is about time!! - Anonymous - 2001-02-07

He's either playing dumb or trying to flame/troll. The latter is more likely, considering how many flamers and trolls are travelling around these days.

Re: It is about time!! - ac - 2001-02-07

Geez, he makes an obviously sarcastic comment about the original commenter's irrational fear of trying to install something different, and people somehow manage to misunderstand him. That doesn't make him a troll.

Re: It is about time!! - emmanuel - 2001-02-09

oooops! you're obviously right.. my mistake :O( as was said, trolls are frequent so.. sorry about that.. Emmanuel

Re: It is about time!! - Roger - 2001-02-07

yea... umm... what the hell are you talking about?

Re: It is about time!! - Darrell Esau - 2001-02-07

Umm.. ditto that.

Re: It is about time!! - ac - 2001-02-07

Yeah, dont you know that once you are entrenched in GNOME you cannot change to another desktop?

Re: It is about time!! - Prefers KDE 2 - 2001-02-07

I was using Gnome, however when KDE 2.0 arrived, it became clear it was time to move to KDE.

Re: It is about time!! - bd - 2001-02-09

What the hell are you talking about? I have 3 virtual desktops in Gnome here and I can switch between them easily using the Gnome Pager!

Re: It is about time!! - ac - 2001-02-10

I was joking. Being a bit sarcastic. I was also implying desktop environment, not desktop screen.

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - guenther - 2001-02-07

fine. this is indeed great news. my g400 is awaiting this feature for a long time now... but, will it really ship with 2.1 final ? (read some confusing mails elsewhere about codefreeze).

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - emmanuel - 2001-02-07

it will ship in 2.1 final (as it is bugfix ;o) ). actually the mailing-list was quite funny to read there: yes! look at this! i found a bug-report for this! Therefore obviously it's a bug we *need* to correct, not a new feature ;o) Anyway.. good news.. but does kde already have xinerama support?

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - reihal - 2001-02-07

My G400 is so excited about this! Goodbye Windows!

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Joe Dorita - 2001-02-07

Does "Multihead" mean Xinerama or mirrored-display (same thing displayed on two monitors) or something else?

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Guillaume - 2001-02-09

Neither. Multihead is a general term to mean the support of several monitors. But there are two ways of doing that. The simplest one (NO xinerama) is one X display per monitor. e.g. you can do xterm -display :0.0 -> goes on the first monitor xterm -display :0.1 -> goes on the 2nd etc... but you can't move a window from a monitor to another. The other one, xinerama, is all the monitors merged into one large X display. E.g. you can freely move one window from a monitor to another. Xinerama is already working for KDE 2.1 (and every version of KDE) as it doesn't require anything special from the application. It just displays on something big. As I understand this patch, it means the support of several displays, which is really nice to have as well. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong).

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - desperate - 2001-02-09

KDE 2.1 is working with Xinerama, however only on one monitor. You needed a second multihead aware WM (like the awfull e) to be able to use both screens. However, I have compiled everything, put enableMultihead=true in Kdeglobals, but I still see no difference. (my xinerama works with e).

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Guillaume Laurent - 2001-02-09

If it's working only on one monitor, then it means you're not using xinerama :-), just basic multihead. Try startx +xinerama

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - desperate - 2001-02-09

Puh :) - now I realized, that I wasnt using Xinerama with e. It seems to have automagically detected the second display and extended itself to it, opening a second window manager (or whatever). But now I fear that my KDE compilation is broken, because it doesnt seem to be aware of xinerama at all. It opens applications between the two monitors and maximises across both screens. The panel is stretched to the second display, but doesnt show up there, so I cant use the left side, no edge resistance... If its not my compilation: Is it possible to open a second KDE instance in the second monitor in basic multihead, not using xinerama?

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - desperate - 2001-02-09

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Chardros - 2001-02-07

Thank you! My G400 will be pleased. I've been trying to run Enlightenment w/ KDE 2.1 in order to get some multi-head awareness, but have run into numerous problems w/ virtual desktops working right between the two. Bummer. I liked the KDE/E combo.

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Darrell Esau - 2001-02-07

Awesome!!!! xinerama with KDE 2.0.1 is useable but this will be great!!! You're the hero for the day Bradley!

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Erik Hensema - 2001-02-07

Is it xinerama? Or is it just two seperate desktops? Anyway, multihead support is great. Up until now, I have been running KDE2 on my primary screen and fvwm2 on my secondary screen. It works, but it isn't pretty, offcourse.

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Darrell Esau - 2001-02-28

Xinerama.

???? - Anonymous - 2001-02-07

OK OK, multihead support is great. But... what IS multihead?

Re: ???? - emmanuel - 2001-02-09

some matrox cards (i don't think other manufacturors support that?) have two video outputs. one for a normal monitor, some for a TFT/flat screen/TV. I hear recent one support two monitors as well. Of course this is way cool, and different from Xinerama, which is having two monitors with *two* video cards. Hope this helps, Emmanuel

Re: ???? - Guillaume Laurent - 2001-02-10

No, xinerama is a form of multihead merging several physical displays into a single logical one. Two monitors on two videocards is basic multihead.

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Anonymous - 2001-02-07

That's pretty cool. But can you make this work for only one monitor? I really can't afford a second one (+ a new graphic card) apart from not having enough space on my (physical) desktop anyway...

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Kevin Puetz - 2001-02-07

Umm... I suppose it might be possible, but it would certainly be pointless. This isn't about virtual desktops or the like, it's solely about supporting multiple physical monitors correctly (not opening windows with odd overlaps across the boundary, etc). So, if you don't have a multihead setup, it means nothing at all to you.

Where to put enableMultihead? - desperate - 2001-02-09

Hi, I have compiled the CVS from 7/2. The code is there. now: where do I have to put enableMultihead? Thank you very much for your answer.

Re: Where to put enableMultihead? - KDE User - 2001-02-11

look at .kde*/share/config/kdeglobals: [X11] enableMultihead=false

Finally! - Gene Scott - 2001-02-09

I assume this will fix the bug when running KDE apps remotely, the apps they spawn sometimes decide to appear on the local console instead of the remote host that should be getting them. (For example, viewing an attachment in kmail).

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - x - 2001-02-10

who do i get anti-aliasing working , !?! , is this working with multihead too ??? do i have to recompile something or does it work out of the box

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Frank Schröder - 2001-02-12

I've got KDE 2.1 beta2 running with xinerama and 2 screens on a Matrox G450. Will this patch recognize the two screens of my desktop and maximize a window only on one screen? Can windows be aligned at both sides of each screen? Thanks

Re: Multihead Support in KDE 2.1 - Uli Suppa - 2001-02-15

hmmm, multihead is great, i'm running kde 2.1 in xinerama mode. i tried to patch the source rpms, for kdelibs it worked, but i couldn't get the kdebase package to compile, did anyone make it ? distrib.: redhat 6.2 Uli.

Multihead lockup - Craig Buckley - 2002-09-25

I am currently running multihead on my linux box with 2 video cards; a radeon 32mb and an xpert98 16mb. It locks up KDE on initialization and works well until I run an app on Gnome. Any ideas what I might have configured wrong?

Dual Monitor Video card - Will it work with Dual H - taxidriver - 2004-02-17

Hi, I am fairly new to KDE, and I have a Geforce 4 ti 4400, and It has support for two monitors, and I was just wondering if there was a patch or a program so I can have dual monitor w/o having to buy a second video card? If anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated. Thx Eric (taxidriver)