[mythtv-users] Looking for Dual Head Help

Sat Feb 21 16:59:30 UTC 2009

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 8:41 AM, John Welch <jrw3319 at gmail.com> wrote:

> One of my systems is what I will call a multi-purpose system.  I am
> running Fedora 10 with a dual-DVI nVidia 8600GT graphics card.  My
> primary display is a Samsung 20" LCD, where I do general tasks such as
> web surfing, email, office documents, etc.  The secondary display is
> an AOC 32" LCD HDTV that I use as a display for Mythtv.  I've been
> happily running along using a Xinerama setup and everything has been
> working great.  However, since Fedora 10 has upgraded to KDE 4.2 I've
> really been enjoying the desktop effects and various other "eye candy"
> on my F10 PC at work.  I'd like to enable these desktop effects on
> this "multi-purpose" PC at home, but KDE won't allow it with Xinerama
> enabled (at least I can't figure out how to do it).  I've been trying
> to change my setup so that I'm not using Xinerama, but still have the
> same general setup where I can run my general purpose stuff on one
> display and Mythtv on the HDTV.  I've read the "Running MythTV Dual
> Headed" wiki, searched around on both the Mythtv mailing lists and
> Google, but thus far have not been able to accomplish what I'm trying
> to do.  The closest I've come is using an 'xorg.conf' similar to what
> is described in the "PIP Display" section to the dual headed wiki
> page.  However, it is not quite working the way I want.  I can get the
> Myth frontend to display on the HDTV, but if I switch the mouse and
> keyboard focus back to the primary display I can't figure out how to
> eventually put it back to the frontend and I end up having to kill the
> process instead of exiting out properly.  I don't know if I don't
> understand the "mouse jail" program that is described in the wiki, or
> whether it isn't working right on my system.
>
> So, anyone get any suggestions on how I can make this work?  I think
> what I want is two separate X servers each controlling one display,
> but I can't figure out the proper xorg.conf for this configuration.  I
> have read the section in the wiki page describing this setup, but it
> is just not clicking with me.  Ideally I'd like to be able to use both
> displays at the same time, like I can do now with my Xinerama setup,
> but this is not absolutely essential as most of the time I'm really
> only use one display or the other.
>
> Note that while any suggestions are welcome, any "dump KDE"
> suggestions will only be tried as a last resort, as I really would
> like to stick with KDE.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> John
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> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
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>

I am running the setup that you want with a slight difference.  I have my
main desktop (Display 0) on an LCD display and run myth on display 1 which
is either a TV or a projector depending on if the projector is turned on.

You run the two displays with twinview off and set up the main one as
display 0.  then, if you have mythbuntu, you fix a bug and start myth in
display 1.
http://www.archivum.info/ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com/2008-04/msg33149.html

Here is my xorg.conf file which should be very similar to what you end up
with.  You will want to change the meta modes perhaps.

---------------------------------------------------------------
# First Screen is LCD monitor where mythweb and other applications go
# Second screen is where Myth will go

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "LCDMonitor"
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: 1280x1024_60 +0+0"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "MythMonitor"
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "metamodes" "DFP: 1280x720_60 +0+0"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Vendorname "NVIDIA Corporation"
Boardname "GeForce 6200 LE"
Busid "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "UseEvents" "True"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nvidia"
Vendorname "NVIDIA Corporation"
Boardname "GeForce 6200 LE"
Busid "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "UseEvents" "True"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
  screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
  screen 1 "Screen1" rightof "Screen0"
Inputdevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Inputdevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "MythMonitor"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "LCDMonitor"
Modelname "Samsung SyncMaster"
Horizsync 30.0 - 63.0
Vertrefresh 56.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Section "Files"
Rgbpath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
EndSection
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