Xfce Forum

agamennon

Member

Registered: 2011-11-15

Posts: 2

xfce multimonitor extended desktop

hi guys, totaly new here, i had allways used windows, and  i am reacently trying linux, turns out gnome3 is not what i want (i like gnome2) but xfce seem to be exatcly what i want, unfortunatly i use multiple monitors and they just dont work the way i expect
i am running debian mint xfce on virutalbox configured with 3 monitors and guest additions installed,  all works well, the monitors show up and are in the correct resolutions,  but they all display the same image, i want to create a single extended desktop that span all 3 monitors, so i can drag my windows arround and keep working the way i do on gnome2 or windows.  how to proceed?

angstrom

Member

Registered: 2011-08-13

Posts: 267

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

Please use the search function on the forum. There are a lot of topics about this. Try ocmbination of those keyword : multi "2" monitor screen

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Xfce is NOT Xubuntu. Bugs in Xubuntu don't mean that Xfce is buggy ...

phre4k

Member

Registered: 2011-11-15

Posts: 8

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

I don't find anything when I enter the search query you mentioned o_O

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angstrom

Member

Registered: 2011-08-13

Posts: 267

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

I tried "2 monitor" and I got at least :
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=6440
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=6446
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=6324
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5300
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5892

Up to you to tried "2 screen" "Multi monitor" "multi screen" ...

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Xfce is NOT Xubuntu. Bugs in Xubuntu don't mean that Xfce is buggy ...

agamennon

Member

Registered: 2011-11-15

Posts: 2

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

@angstrom the answer is:

xrandr --output VBOX1 --auto --right-of VBOX0
xrandr --output VBOX2 --auto --left-of VBOX0   

I try to search before i made my quesiton, it was just berried deep into other nonsense (especially to a beginner), at least i am grateful  you did not point to google.
One issue remains, that configuration is lost on boot,  i need to make this permanent (PS some suggestions found in here as to append the commands to start-up scripts did not work)
so how to make this settings permanent?  (it is surprising to me that they are not permanent to begin with!)

Nice&Gently

Member

From: Berlin, old europe

Registered: 2011-05-22

Posts: 26

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

Create a sh-script named monitor.sh or the name you like.

#!/bin/bash

sleep 2 && xrandr --output VBOX1 --auto --right-of VBOX0 && xrandr --output VBOX2 --auto --left-of VBOX0

But i think only one xrandr command is necessary. You've to try it out.

Then create a autostart with 'sh /path to the script/monitor.sh.
If your desktop start is confused try 'sleep 4'

I start xfce with such a script if i used the nouveau graphic driver

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Life's too short for boring desktops

paolo321

Member

Registered: 2011-06-26

Posts: 121

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

If you want a configuration GUI, arandr is imho really nice. You can use it to configure multimonitor setup like you want, then its settings are saved as a bash script.
It does not depend on gnome/kde , so , at least imho , fits well for use with xfce.

mkutsevol

Member

Registered: 2011-11-25

Posts: 1

Re: xfce multimonitor extended desktop

xrandr can be configured via xorg.conf

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2#xorg.conf
(google for "xorg.conf xrandr")

Having it configures this way (in the xorg.conf) you will have the right configuration on the login screen (gdm/kdm/lightdm or whatever you are using).

PS. After a week of investigation and experiments with my three monitor setup I came to XFCE too.

PPS.

By the way. If you are going to use separate video cards to drive three monitors (eg. two dual-head cards with 2+1 monitors on them) you will not be able to make all three monitors a one workspace/desktop using xrandr (X RANDR extention). The latest version of randr can't do that. You will have to use XINERAMA. Xinerama has a performance drawback. You full desktop will be rendered on every GPU and commited to displays only after being rendered on all GPUs. So the overall performance will be worse than the performance of the worst GPU. And I haven't found the way to have hardware acceleration/xinerama/composite working together. I don't care about games, but not having descent performance in OS interface on displays attached to a graphics card based on a NV92 chipset is rather frustrating. At the moment I stopped on two X screens. One is a separate workspace and the other two are joined together using xorg.conf's RANDR extension options.
my /etc/X11/xorg.conf, as a reference:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" RightOf "Screen1"
    Screen      1  "Screen1" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Acer B243W"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
    Option	   "RightOf" "Monitor1"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Philips 273ELH"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"

EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor2"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "LG Electronics L204W"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nouveau"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTS 250"
    BusID          "PCI:4:0:0"
    Option          "Monitor-HDMI-1" "Monitor1"
    Option 	    "Monitor-DVI-I-1" "Monitor0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device2"
    Driver         "nouveau"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 6600"
    BusID          "PCI:3:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
	Modes		"1920x1050" "1920x1200"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device2"
    Monitor        "Monitor2"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Without the line

Modes		"1920x1050" "1920x1200"

it failed to discover the right resolutions for the both monitors attached to the GTS 250.
Physically monitors are located in the following order (Identifier (Vendor)):   Monitor2(LG) -> Monitor1(Philips) -> Monitor0(Acer). With the lines

Screen      0  "Screen0" RightOf "Screen1"
Screen      1  "Screen1" 0 0

I have the central monitor (Philips) as the "primary" one. E.g I have login manager on it.
Hope it'll help you a bit

Last edited by mkutsevol (2011-11-25 20:32:20)