using two monitors with XFce4

[Guido Draheim]

Remco Lubbers wrote:
> Op Fri, 28 Nov 2003 09:59:59 +0100 schreef Guido Draheim aan Remco Lubbers
> <rpl at concepts.nl>, xfce list <xfce at xfce.org>:
> 
> 
>> > Is it possible to use a second monitor with XFce4 _without_ using Xinerama?
>> > [..cut..]
>> > I can not drag anything there, things just reappear on the other side of
>> > monitor1. DO I have to start 2 XFce-sessions or something?
> 
> 
>> yes, it's a show-stopper, so xfce4 is not going to live on my desktop.
> 
> 
> So what do you use now then? I find KDE way to heavy, I'll have a look at
> blackbox and derivates this weekend...

gnome 2.4 - which is lighter in system requirements but it is working less
properly than its predecessor, e.g. in session managment. Well, atleast
better than eyecandy kde - which looks to assimilate all computer power
to its own purpose.

> 
> 
>> I did dig into mailinglist archives and noticed messages that dualhead
>> is opted for xfce4.2 based on gtk > 2.2 which has better multihead
>> support - from one binary.
> 
> 
> ok, looking forward to that....
> 
> 
>> Similar limitations did exist in kde and gnome about two year ago as well
>> but their are fixed for quite a time now. In that era I was fixing it
>> with running an extra xfwm -display :0.1 to put a wm on the second head.
>> That is _not_ possible with xfwm4 AFAICS, it reports "some wm already
>> running". That accounts as a bug I'd say but who's going to fix it...
> 
> 
> Good tip, thanks! xfwm4 does give an error and will not start on the second
> monitor, but I reinstalled XFce 3 and started the xfwm on the second monitor,
> which I can use without any problems! So I have a 3 and a 4 wm simultaniously
> :-)
> Is that likely to cause problems? The second screen is not able to connect to
> the X session manager and uses the builtin one...

I did never have proper session management with xfc3 on the second head. Other
than that I had never have any problems, well YMMV, ye know.

Atlast your test (which I did not try so far) turns up with an answer:
there would have been two causes for the bug (a) xfwm4 declares the
second head managed but doesn't (b) xfwm4 detects the second head to
be managed where it isn't declared as that. - and we see that (b) is
present.

> 
> BTW, the screenshot
> http://www.xfce.org/images/screenshots/XFce4_xinerama_thumbnail.png
> looks like the two monitors are configured seperately, although it says
> xinerama. When I activate xinerama, my display just gets stretched over the 2
> monitors....
> 

I dunno about xinerama options, my hardware is not in the shape to
actually mess with xinerama. The two heads are strictly independent
in hardware but tied to the same x11 session.

cheers,
-- guido                                  http://google.de/search?q=guidod
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