[ale] Best way of setting up a 2nd monitor.

[Richard Bronosky]

For your longer run I would suggest using a DVI to HDMI cable. The digital
is more tolerant than the analog VGA. But, before you buy a long cable, try
your tv out and make sure it doesn't overscan. I have a sharp that always
overscans the HDMI but not the VGA.

On Dec 26, 2010 4:58 PM, "Scott Castaline" <skotchman at gmail.com> wrote:

I reference an earlier post as to using my HDTV as the 2nd monitor. This
is just a temporary solution until I get the necessary hardware for a
separate box for a MythTV solution. I am wondering if I'd be better off
using a 2nd video card for the other screen instead of using the 2nd
display port of the onboard video. My thought was to go with a 30ft VGA
cable from the VGA port to the TV. Doing that is there a way to control
which screen gets what desktop objects or can I just drag and drop them
to the desired part of the virtual display.

 From what I've been able to find about xrandr it seems to only allow
positioning the 2nd screen either to the left, right, above or below the
primary screen, but no mention of object placement on the desktop. On
another forum someone had suggested using a separate video card or at
least something other than the onboard video to do this. Also before I
get the cable should I consider HDMI or would VGA be ok? As I said in my
earlier post I do have a HD3650 PCIe x16 card so I could go that route
which would allow me to go with the HDMI option since my primary is
using the DVI port on the onboard not allowing the use of the HDMI which
would require the use of VGA.

With these options which way am I better going?

1. Primary monitor on the onboard vdeo DVI port and 2nd monitor on the
VGA port same video bd.  getting a 30 ft cable.

2. Primary monitor on the onboard video DVI port and the 2nd monitor on
the HD3650 going either VGA or HDMI same length cable needed.

Also I believe on another thread (Re: [ale] xinit, autoexec, xorg, gdm,
kdm, etc.etc.,) Bryon Jeff (or Jeff Bryon) mentions running a 2nd copy
of X Server allowing 2 separate users with graphical access to the
system. I am wondering what is involved in setting that up and how
complicated would that be to do? What options to configurations would I
have?
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