Re: two displays?
On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Seth R Arnold wrote:
> * SPENER Christian <spener@zsstahl.tu-graz.ac.at> [000907 00:38]:
> > i need 2 displays, what is the best solution? buy the matrox g400max
> > dualhead, or buy 2 gaphic cards? sometimes i need only on one X and on the
> > other shelll only, and sometimes, on both X, does this work?
>
> Chris, I myself have a matrox dual-head g400 max. I need to get my
> second monitor back from a friend, and then I can test its dual-head
> support. However, I have a feeling that in order to get both ports to
> work, I will need to run the Matrox supplied xf86 4.0.1 driver.
There are two ways to get both heads working:
1. Run Matrox's driver (which I tried with phase1v19 last night with no
trouble).
2. Use a recent version of matroxfb (one that supports the Maven) to
run fbdev on the second head with no acceleration. I think I had to use
fbdev on the primary head as well to get this to work (I last tried it
several months ago).
Choice 1 is a lot easier to set up, and will perform better.
> I *think* dual video cards would probably suit your needs better;
> getting one output to do X and one output to do text on a g400max seems
> very non-trivial. Two video cards could probably pull this one off
> better, but you will likely need two XF86Config files, and switch
> between the two at runtime.
With two video cards, the tricky part will probably getting the second
card to do something useful outside of X :)
> Whichever you pick will probably be the one
> you have to use until you quit X.
>
> Using them both in X might be the easiest solution. :)
No, you don't need two XF86Configs. Just have multiple serverlayouts in
your XF86Config, and select between them with "startx -- -layout foo".
The layout determines which screens are actually controlled by the X
server. I use this to switch between single head and DualHead(tm) on my
G400. I don't want the second head to be configured all of the time, since
it's hooked up to my TV set :)
Brad
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