From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Dec 26 02:07:01 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 99DBE16A4CE for ; Sun, 26 Dec 2004 02:07:01 +0000 (GMT) Received: from blackwater.lemis.com (wantadilla.lemis.com [192.109.197.135]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DCD1B43D41 for ; Sun, 26 Dec 2004 02:06:59 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: by blackwater.lemis.com (Postfix, from userid 1004) id 7CE3C8565F; Sun, 26 Dec 2004 12:36:56 +1030 (CST) Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 12:36:56 +1030 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey To: Joe Schmoe Message-ID: <20041226020656.GC19771@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20041226014550.45577.qmail@web53308.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="jy6Sn24JjFx/iggw" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20041226014550.45577.qmail@web53308.mail.yahoo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Organization: The FreeBSD Project Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ X-PGP-Fingerprint: 9A1B 8202 BCCE B846 F92F 09AC 22E6 F290 507A 4223 cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: triple monitor hardware setup on FBSD - suggestions needed... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 02:07:01 -0000 --jy6Sn24JjFx/iggw Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline On Saturday, 25 December 2004 at 17:45:49 -0800, Joe Schmoe wrote: > > I am currently running a triple-monitor setup under > winXP, with an extended desktop that stretches across > all three monitors. I like it. > > I would, however, like to use FreeBSD. > > So, first off, what hardware (video card) comes to > mind for doing triple screens with FreeBSD ? A matrox > P750 comes to mind, but when you run it with three > screens, they downgrade to 1280x1024, which is bad. I > am happy to consider multiple video cards to > accomplish this ... at the very least I need 1600x1200 > out of each card, preferably 1920x1200 ... You're not limited to a single video card under FreeBSD. > Second, what is the support for something like this in XFree86, or > x.org ? Good. > What I am really looking for is the ability to create virtually > sized screens - so instead of having three total (physical) screens > that I can maximize windows inside of, I want to split each physical > screen in half for a total of 6 virtual screens - so there are six > total areas within which I can maximize a window in ... this is > something I am really trying to accomplish. I don't know how you'd do that (nor why you would want to). X offers a feature called Xinerama which does the opposite: it treats all screens as part of one big screen. The disadvantage here is that all the screens should have the same resolution. From experience, you can't do everything with 2048x1536 screens: too much software (especially from the Microsoft space, or free software which tries to emulate it) can't handle this kind of resolution. For example, web browsing on such screens is a pain: either the fonts are miniscule, or half the (broken) web sites that you browse completely break their formatting. I'm currently running a setup with 8 displays spread over 5 machines. One of them has three displays. Take a look at http://www.lemis.com/grog/hardware.html, which is a little out of date (I'm now running x.org, and I now have more screens), but it gives an idea of the kind of things you can do. Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. If you don't, I may ignore the reply or reply to the original recipients. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html See complete headers for address and phone numbers. --jy6Sn24JjFx/iggw Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFBzhzAIubykFB6QiMRAkMdAKCy5ZSl61nQ/DKeQmAHVJhLxWimLwCfbC/o EGMuFAVpphV7H8dNaodBkDg= =n8PI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --jy6Sn24JjFx/iggw--