The Answer Gang

Dual (or more) Monitor support

From Stamatis Sarlis on Mon, 04 Sep 2000

Answered by: Jim Dennis

Dear Answer Guy,

I wonder if Linux (and XFree) supports 2 or more VGA cards in the same = PC. If not, is there any commercial XServer that can support more than 1 = VGA ? Where can I find more informations about this issue ?

Thank you in advance for your help

The latest version of XFree (version 4.x) support "Xinerama" which includes multi-headed support. However, I haven't tried that yet. XFree86 version 4.x will probably be included in the next major releases of each mainstream Linux distribution; so look for it in a few months if you don't want to try downloading, building and installing it yourself.

The two major commercial X server packages for Linux support multiple heads as well. I forget which is which but in one of them the multi-headed support is part of the main package, in the other it is a separate version of the package. These two X packages are:

X-inside: Xig Inc

http://www.xig.com

Metro-X:

http://www.metrolink.com

... note: I think it is the latter of these that offers multi-head support (as well as support for some touch screens and many proprietary laptop chipsets) in their base package. I think that Xig's products are separated among multi-head, laptop and desktop versions.

Copyright © 2000, James T. Dennis
Published in the Linux Gazette Issue 58 October 2000

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