[onesojourner]

(this may be an ubuntu question)
My future plans are to have my computer sitting in the desk in my office and I plan to run a DVI cable from the computer to my monitor(1280x1024) and a 50ft HDMI cable with DVI adapter to my tv(1920x1080) in the other room. My nvidia 7900gs has 2 dvi ports. What would be the best way to get this set up working with out having to unplug cables all the time and with out having to restart the computer? I thought maybe using the switch user option would be my best bet. That way any process I have going on can run and then I can just set up another account for the tv/xbmc. My main concern is that the right resolution and monitor is getting set up.

[althekiller]

(this may be an ubuntu question).

It is. Last I checked Nvidia's drivers don't support separate displays having different resolutions. Ubuntu or some nvidia related forums are probably your best bet at a quick and correct solution.

[gbyte]

Actually I run GeForce 7600GS for that. I have setup X in dualhead more - DVI for my monitor and D-Sub for the TV. All you need is have your screen #0 for your monitor and #1 for your TV. Then setup scripts to start XBMC on screen #1 when you push power on your remote and you are done. Nice and simple.

P.S. I use Slackware 12.0

Edit to clarify. You can have different resolutions if you setup it simple "Seperate X" dualhead - no Xinerama, no TwinView or whatever else.

[onesojourner]

Can you explain what you have to do to get xbmc to start up on screen #1?

[gbyte]

Can you explain what you have to do to get xbmc to start up on screen #1?

Well it's a simple bash script I have setup to be run by lirc when I press power-on on my MCE remote. As I said my desktop is dualhead and each screen has it's own resolution:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=null # workaround to a nasty segfault I have on menu sounds - prolly just an issue with my ALSA libs.
export DISPLAY=:0.1

XBMCBIN="/usr/local/bin/xbmc";
PID=`ps ax | grep xbmc.bin | awk '$5 != "grep" { print $1 }'`

if [ "$PID" != "" ]; then
  echo "[`date`] XBMC is already running... do nothing!" >> /tmp/irexec-gbyte;
else
  echo "[`date`] XBMC is not running... starting!" >> /tmp/irexec-gbyte;
  sleep 1

  . $XBMCBIN > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi

I have cooked this script using other codes around in forum and adding my own. It's not perfect but it works.

[jkrellner]

You can have different resolutions if you setup it simple "Seperate X" dualhead - no Xinerama, no TwinView or whatever else.

Yes, you can have separate monitors. What some of us (especially me) would like is scaled cloning which, right now, is impossible.

[gbyte]

Yes, you can have separate monitors. What some of us (especially me) would like is scaled cloning which, right now, is impossible.

Unfortunately, you are right for cloning....
ATI support cloning mode in linux, but then you get a mountain of other problems.