[ltp] dual head or xinerama - turning it on and off "on the fly"

[Osho GG]

This is so unfortunate. For those who have tried
dual-head and/or xinerama, suppose I configure it with
two displays and then manually take care to move the
windows from the second display to the primary laptop
display before removing the laptop from port
replicator, will X work fine with just one display?
will I be able to use the second display when I put
the laptop back in the port replicator? 

thanks,
Osho

--- Tod Harter <tharter@giantelectronicbrain.com>
wrote:
> The problem is that each mode is a different
> configuration 'layout' of 
> the display X is configured with. X only reads its
> configuration file at 
> startup, so in order to get it to switch layouts you
> will HAVE to 
> restart your X server. In fact realistically the
> only way I know how to 
> do what you want thats simple is to start up in
> runlevel 3 and pass 
> parameters to X at the startx command. That way you
> can tell it which 
> layout to use. So the switching drill would involve
> shutting down your X 
> desktop, switching hardware configurations, and
> typing startx ... which 
> obviously isn't what you want!
> 
> Now I'm pretty sure with some hacking of scripts you
> can get X to figure 
> out what your configuration is and then you could
> run at level 5 and 
> every time X restarts it will 'do the right thing',
> but thats about as 
> close as you can get, as things stand now. Its not
> TOTALLY infeasible 
> for this sort of facility to exist, but it would
> have to be supported by 
> the driver, and probably would require some redesign
> in the
> server itself so that window managers, applications,
> and X internal data 
> structures would get updated as well. I would assume
> that since X can 
> already switch resolutions on the fly that its
> mostly a driver issue at 
> this point.
> 
> Personally I wouldn't hold my breath for it.
> Obviously MS has worked all 
> this out. X and Linux hasn't.
> 
> Osho GG wrote:
> 
> >Hi,
> >
> >I am planning to get a T42p soon and wonder if the
> >usage model I have in mind will be possible with
> >Linux. I would like to use two monitors - LCD
> display
> >in the laptop (1600x1200 resolution) and an
> external
> >LCD flat panel display (1280x1024 resolution). LCD
> >flat panel display would be connected to the port
> >replicator of the thinkpad (either VGA or DVI -
> >whichever works). Based on what I read, I should be
> >able to configure X either with dual-head or with
> >xinerama to get such two displays working.
> >
> >What I would like to know is whether it is possible
> to
> >use two displays only while thinkpad is in the port
> >replicator and use one display when thinkpad is
> >removed from port replicator. When I remove the
> >thinkpad from the port replicator and take it with
> me
> >- can I get the windows on the external display in
> the
> >laptop display? Ideally, it would be nice to be
> able
> >to use a configuration like that so I can use two
> >displays while on my desk and still work without
> >losing the windows while away from desk. Of course,
> I
> >wouldn't want to restart my X server every time I
> >switch between two displays and one display - as
> that
> >would mean significant disruption in work. This is
> >possible to do with Windows and (to it's credit)
> it's
> >reasonably smart about figuring out what is the
> >current display configuration and adjust to it.
> >
> >Has anyone tried to get such a configuration to
> work
> >well? Any suggestions/pointers would be greatly
> >appreciated.
> >
> >thanks,
> >Osho
> >
> >
> >
> >	
> >		
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