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#1 2009-05-02 01:24:59

ataraxia
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From: Pittsburgh
Registered: 2007-05-06
Posts: 1,553

[SOLVED] dual screens with sensible maximizing

Today I got a new machine (a Dell Optiplex 960) at work, and two 24" monitors for it. In order to get both screens to work with the Radeon HD 3470 in it, I had to use Catalyst. radeonhd won't support this card at all. radeon works fine with one screen but xrandr makes strange things happen, like turning off one screen when the second one turns on, and yet claiming both screens are still on.

I have both screens working with the RandR method. It works well, but if I maximize anything, it spans both monitors. I'd like maximized windows to only fill the screen they currently occupy. I'm using jwm.

Is this behavior controlled by the WM? (If so, what WM would do what I want?) Or, is there another method for getting dual screens to work with this card? (I want to be able to drag windows between screens, so the "two separate displays" method won't do either.)

Last edited by ataraxia (2009-05-04 13:50:24)

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#2 2009-05-02 02:51:42

ataraxia
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From: Pittsburgh
Registered: 2007-05-06
Posts: 1,553

Re: [SOLVED] dual screens with sensible maximizing

I found how to do it the Xinerama way instead. I'll have to wait until I get back to the machine on Monday to see if that does what I want. If not, I'll be lighting this thread up again then.

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#3 2009-05-02 05:45:30

securitybreach
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From: In front of my computers
Registered: 2007-11-18
Posts: 416
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Re: [SOLVED] dual screens with sensible maximizing

ataraxia wrote:

Or, is there another method for getting dual screens to work with this card? (I want to be able to drag windows between screens, so the "two separate displays" method won't do either.)

I run Openbox on dual screens using Nvidia ( I know you run Radeon) but I use Xinerama and seperate X. This way I have two different screens and each one can maximize a window(no stretching). I can also drag windows between them. You have to have a window atleast over half way in a screen for it to maximize in that screen using Xinerama/Seperate X.  Of course with Openbox you have to run a session for each screen so the menu will work. Here is what I mean:

.xinitrc entry:

exec openbox-session

and I had to add this to ~/.config/openbox/autostart:

(sleep 2 && DISPLAY=:0.1 openbox) &

With KDE, Gnome, and Xfce4 all of what you asked about works out of the box. Can even have seperate background for each screen.

200905020202252704x1050.png
w2704.png


BTW the one on the right is only 1024x768 and is Gnuscreen is maxinized. The other is 1680x1050 thats why monitor 2 does not look maximized.

Thanks

Last edited by securitybreach (2009-05-02 06:06:22)


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#4 2009-05-04 12:57:53

ataraxia
Member
From: Pittsburgh
Registered: 2007-05-06
Posts: 1,553

Re: [SOLVED] dual screens with sensible maximizing

So, after noticing that JWM doesn't link against libxrandr, I decided to try Openbox, which does have explicit XRandR support. But it does the same thing! Can somebody point me to a WM (not a DE) that only resizes a window to cover the current monitor on maximize, under an XRandR (not Xinerama or separate X) setup? Since Xinerama is being deprecated upstream, I don't want to start using it now, and I don't want to run two instances of my WM.

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#5 2009-05-04 13:50:07

ataraxia
Member
From: Pittsburgh
Registered: 2007-05-06
Posts: 1,553

Re: [SOLVED] dual screens with sensible maximizing

Ok, I got something that works. Following this advice, I turned off RandR in Catalyst and enabled the old "BigDesktop" method, which does what I want. Looks like XRandR support has a way to go before it's sensible. I'd guess that the needed info is available in libxrandr's API, but that WM developers haven't gotten around to implementing it yet. After all, none of the previous methods of doing multi-monitor required this to be done at the level of the WM.

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