Re: two monitors

[Oleg Krivosheev <kriol@fnal.gov>]

hi,

   Ok guys -- I have a second monitor, and wouldn't mind buying a second video
   card if it would allow me to use two monitors at the same time. I don't know
   where to start looking for information on this.

as usual

http://www.xfree86.org

   My current video card is an AGP ATI Xpert@work. I am running XFree86 Mach64
   3.3.5-1.

   Do you guys have any suggestions for a second video card (I think it would
   need to be PCI... :) 

it is not yet in stable xfree release (3.3.5) but it is planned for
Xfree 4.0 release. If you are brave enough you should buy Matrox PCI
card, grab latest xfree snapshot (3.9.16) and try it. From 3.9.16
Release Notes:

...

2.5. Multi-head

Some multi-head configurations are supported in this release, primarily with multiple PCI/AGP cards. However, this is an area that is still being worked on, and we
expect that the range of configurations for which it works well will increase in future snapshots. A configuration that is known to work well in most cases is multiple
(supported) Matrox cards.

One of the main problems is with drivers not sufficiently initialising cards that were not initialised at boot time. Normally only the primary video card gets initialised at
boot time. Some combinations can be made to work better by changing which card is the primary card (either by using a different PCI slot, or by changing the system
BIOS's preference for the primary card). We are investigating options for ``soft-booting'' secondary video cards to deal with this problem, and we've had some very
encouraging results.

2.6. Xinerama

Xinerama is an X server extension that allows multiple physical screens to behave as a single screen. With traditional multi-head in X11, windows cannot span or
cross physical screens. Xinerama removes this limitation. Xinerama does, however, require that the physical screens all have the same root depth, so it isn't possible,
for example, to use an 8-bit screen together with a 16-bit screen in Xinerama mode.

Xinerama is not enabled by default, and can be enabled with the +xinerama command line option for the X server.

Xinerama was included with X11R6.4. The version included in this snapshot contains many bug fixes. This is an area that we are still working on, and we expect it to be
improved further in future snapshots.

Known problems: 

     The Xinerama layout doesn't match the layout specified in the config file's ServerLayout section. 
     It appears that there are still some bugs that cause unexpected behaviour from time to time. 
     Most (all?) window managers are not Xinerama-aware, and so some operations like window placement and resizing might not behave in an ideal way. This is
     an issue that needs to be dealt with in the individual window managers, and isn't specifically an XFree86 problem. 

...

   Or, should I just buy a new video card that can handle
   two video outputs? Do such things exist? (Can I afford them? :)

have no idea

   Any hints you have would be appreciated. :)

   Thanks

OK