Arch Linux

chrisgray1497

Member

Registered: 2011-03-29

Posts: 12

cli only external monitor without a video card?

so I have a laptop with dual sli video cards and an external monitor. recently a third monitor came into my possession.

The two video cards can only power two displays, so I have a third display that I can't use. I was wondering if there was someway to set it up to display a permanent console. just updating text would be a significantly lighter load. Then I could alt+tab onto the third, text only monitor.

Does anyone know how to implement this? or any resources you could point me towards? Is this theoretically possible, or do you always need a video card even for a simple text display, no gui, no windows?

thanks.

stryder

Member

Registered: 2009-02-28

Posts: 500

Re: cli only external monitor without a video card?

Just wondering, how are you going to connect the monitor to the laptop?

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,774

Re: cli only external monitor without a video card?

How about a USB video adapter?

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chrisgray1497

Member

Registered: 2011-03-29

Posts: 12

Re: cli only external monitor without a video card?

there are two video cards so there are two outputs: a VGA and a DVI.  But I suppose those are probably on the video cards.  So maybe I would have to use the built in laptop display as the text only (non video card display) and the two external monitors running off the two video cards.

This is sounding less and less feasible. 

sure I could use a usb video adapter.  How would that work in terms of software or getting the terminal to display on the monitor? Please note I don't want the text only monitor to mimic a terminal on my computer; I want it to have its own terminal.

masteryod

Member

Registered: 2010-05-19

Posts: 433

Re: cli only external monitor without a video card?

there is no such thing like "non video card display", every display including laptop display IS connected to some sort of graphic card, you can probably set your laptop display as third independent monitor as long as your drivers alows that (also look at xrandr)

if you want more help you need to clarify the situation because I'm confused what this is all about

do you mean something like that?
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/8766/31974059.gif