dual head - I want different window managers!

saciel · 2007-08-06 00:24:10

I'm running a dual head setup that's working fine with Xinerama. Today I started experimenting and disabling Xinerama in xorg.conf starts two session of gnome on the two screens. The mouse can be moved from one screen to the other, the windows can't. Display variables are :0.0 and :0.1.

Now I thought about having two different window managers - gnome one screen, and a minimalistic one with some consoles on the other one - but I have actually no idea where to start. Any help is appreciated, any suggestions for a minimalistic wm as well!

pauldonnelly · 2007-08-06 06:11:18

Well, I believe Ratpoison can be made to use only a particular screen with the -s command line option, and Windowlab only runs on one screen too, IIRC. So putting
ratpoison -s 0 &
DISPLAY=:0.1 windowlab
in .xinitrc should work out. Or something like that, maybe. Those two would be my choices if I wanted a tiled screen and a floating screen.

saciel · 2007-08-08 12:05:04

With

ratpoison -s 1 &
exec fluxbox -display :0.0

in .xinitrc I can start ratpoison and fluxbox. I didn't manage to start gnome. But there is another problem. If in fluxbox, I didn't find a way to hand focus to ratpoison, so I cannot open new consoles there.

pauldonnelly · 2007-08-09 02:58:35

I thought keyboard focus just went to the screen containing the mouse cursor, or something. I haven't messed with dual monitors for a while, so I may not be much help here.

pelle.k · 2007-08-09 10:06:25

I tried this with kde/openbox once. I figured the second screen (a tv, for watching movies and stuff) should only have a light WM. I could never figure out how to stop kde from loading on both screens, but i did make it happen once, by mistake...
Any new insights are appreciated

tmadhavan · 2007-08-10 10:31:10

In your .xinitrc, can't you only have one line that is an 'exec' line? I.e., wouldn't you have to run one WM as a background process?

saciel · 2007-08-10 12:25:59

@pelle: I have the same problem with gnome... in my xinitrc I first start ratpoison on the second screend but if I start gnome afterwards it takes both screens anyway. It currently only works with two 'simple' WMs. Though, I like Fluxbox as a replacement for gnome/kde very much. If it only had support for beryl, it would definately be my WM of choice.

@tmadhavan: You can indeed only have one exec line but you can execute any amount of commands before that line adding a '&' at the end of the line. The exec just defines the command that is linked to the XServer which means, if the 'exec' command exits, then the Xserver exits as well. But it doesn't have the WM you use with 'exec'. I once used a script I had written there, that allowed me to change the WM on the fly without shutting down neither X itself, nor any application I had running.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-08-06 00:24:10

dual head - I want different window managers!

#2 2007-08-06 06:11:18

Re: dual head - I want different window managers!

#3 2007-08-08 12:05:04

Re: dual head - I want different window managers!

#4 2007-08-09 02:58:35

Re: dual head - I want different window managers!

#5 2007-08-09 10:06:25

Re: dual head - I want different window managers!

#6 2007-08-10 10:31:10

Re: dual head - I want different window managers!

#7 2007-08-10 12:25:59

Re: dual head - I want different window managers!

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