Arch Linux

zacariaz

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2012-01-18

Posts: 539

Virtual monitors - What am I doing wrong?

Some time ago, I was introduced to xrandr virtual monitors, as a possible solution to a problem, and it worked out of the box, except a notorious gtk/xfce bug resulted in it not being particularly useful.

Since then, I've moved away from XFCE, and tried numerous window managers and desktop environments, taking great care to ensure they're not using GTK, only to find that I cannot get it to work, at all, thus presumably I'm doing something wrong.

This is my current test script, but it doesn't even begin to describe the various things I've tried:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -z "$( xrandr --listactivemonitors | grep "LEFT" )" ]; then
    xrandr --output DP-0 --primary --mode 5120x1440
    xrandr --setmonitor LEFT 2560/597x1440/336+0+0 DP-0
    xrandr --setmonitor RIGHT 2560/597x1440/336+2560+0 none
    xrandr --fb 5121x1440
    xrandr --fb 5120x1440
else
    xrandr --delmonitor LEFT
    xrandr --delmonitor RIGHT
    xrandr --fb 5121x1440
    xrandr --fb 5120x1440
fi
xrandr --listactivemonitors

The one time I did get it to work, involved actually plugin in a second monitor, which somehow did something or rather.
Since then I've tried to find the answer on my own, but it seems that either it just works, or people are running XFCE, and then there was one single comment somewhere, about it being important to set a primary monitors. Well, I've done that, and even tried setting one of the virtual monitors as primary, with no result. I even updated the firmware on my monitor.

I would very much like for this to work, so please, what am I doing wrong?
Or at the very least, should this work, on a properly configured system? If so, I can begin to delve into, to other stuff, like the xorg configuration and such, but I would very my like to know, what is actually required, for it to work.

I'm running an nvidia 3090, which doesn't seem to be and issue, and currently, openbox.

Thanks and best regards.

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I am a philosopher, of sorts, not a troll or an imbecile.
My apologies that this is not always obvious, despite my best efforts.