Re: Gnome / Enlightenment with Dual head

["Mark R. Bowyer" <Moredhel earthling net>]

>From: John Gluck <john gluck sympatico ca>

>It is possible to get 2 gnome session on running on a dual head system.
>The only problems I have so far is that the saved session is the same for
>both screens. Also, one of the screens takes quite a while to start up.

>> I have enlightenment running and it works with both my monitors attached
>> to a Matrox G400Max. Each monitor is treated as an individual screen
>> (not using xinerama).
>> I don't want to use xinerama because that just stretches the desktop
>> across the 2 monitors (essentially 1 screen)
>>
>> I am trying to get a gnome session to start on the second screen and
>> can't seem to manage to get it to work. The second monitor is always
>> enlightenment. The first monitor is gnome.
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas???


You've basically solved this problem the only way it's currently possible 
yourself.

I struggled with this a couple of years ago and ended up with the same thing - 
only on a Sun Ultra10 with 3 heads running Solaris.  Enlightenment handles 
multiple screens very well.  Raster and Mandrake both have multi-screen systems 
now running xinerama, but before that I and others moaned ceaselessly until they 
fixed the code to start a different process for each screen and store most 
config information separately per screen.

Gnome however was coded with an assumption of one head, and it shows.  There's 
only one place to store the cofig for a screen, so you can set DISPLAY to each 
head and start a new panel, etc, but the setup will be identical for each.

Since Sun has gotten involved with The Gnome Foundation, I believe this is to be 
fixed in Gnome 2.0 - most every serious engineer in Sun has at least two heads 
these days, if they're not using SunRays (and SunRays can now support 2 heads, 
so that wont last).  But right up to 1.4, Gnome is limited with this.

What *I* do is run Enlightenment as my main X process, so when I kill that, I 
exit, and then I start up the Gnome Panel on one screen only.  Enlightenment's 
Menu system can include all your Gnome apps anyway (and all your KDE and CDE 
ones if you want) so given the Epplets too, the Panel loses a lot of its 
usefulness anyway.

Or you could try Xinerama.  Enlightenment is very good at dealing with the 
double-width screen, so you still get the correct amount of real-estate there - 
the only real difference is that you can drag windows from one screen to the 
other.

Good luck getting your configuration how you like it,

---------My opinion - Not sane, intelligent or necessarily useful---------
o o                                          mailto:Moredhel earthling net 
/v\ark R. Bowyer.    http://Moredhel.i.am    mailto:Mark Bowyer UK Sun COM
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