Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Desktop Snap


Here is a snapshot of my quad head display, it is 3 pc's running across 4 screens and a pic of the desktop a. I use synergy to connect the linux desktop, the windows desktop and linux laptop I have the the synergy server running on the laptop so it controls everything with the one keyboard and mouse. I am hunting aroud for a good price on a logitech g15 keyboard to round out the desktop

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Xubuntu Synergy + Dualhead on Latitude D600 for triple head display

Well after 3 days and many hours scouring xorg.conf and synergy.conf files I have a working triple head display that utilizes the computing power of two PC's.

Okay first the setup.

I have a Dell latitude D600 laptop, this shares the wireless via tinyproxy to desktop over 10base network this machine is known as hiddenslap
The graphics card in hiddenslap is from lspci:-

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 02)

If you have a different card then this one YMMV goodluck and have the moutain dew handy.

The other machine is an Intel based Desktop, nothing fancy anything running X should work.

Okay first you need to install synergy on both machines

a quick sudo apt-get install syngery will achive this

then install xrandr on the laptop by typing in sudo apt-get install xrandr

I found a great shell script that automates the switching of diffrent layouts ie. Mirror, "Big Desktop", Dual Head, CRT only and LCD only. You can find it here output-switcher. I added it as a launcher on xfce panel and can now quickly switch layouts :) cool

I used the documentation over at HowToRandR12 as well as many, way to many other forums and howtos to mention before I got this to work. The above tutorial was the best one.

You have to run synergys --config /etc/synergy.conf on the laptop it is the server, if you use the dektop as the synergy server you cant get across to the second screen (if anyone knows a fix to this please leave a comment)

Run synergyc on the dekstop

there it should be working, run sh /output.sh on the laptop to switch from mirrored to extended etc or add it as a launcher to the panel.

and the most important thing here are my xorg.conf and synergy.conf files that give me a virtual triple head display with my laptop LCD in the middle the CRT running as a secondary to the laptop is on the right and the seconf mac

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default"
Screen "Screen0"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "AIGLX" "true"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "dri"
EndSection

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

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Dell"
ModelName "Dell 1024x768 Laptop Display Panel"
HorizSync 31.5 - 90.0
VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Ipex"
ModelName "Ipex 17 inch CRT 1280x1024"
HorizSync 31.5 - 90.0
VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0
EndSection


Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "radeon"
VendorName "ATI"
Busid "PCI:1:0:0"
BoardName "ATI Radeon Mobility M9"
EndSection




Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Virtual 2048 768
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

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

and now synergy

/etc/synergy.conf

section: screens
hiddenslap:
hiddensdesk:
end

section: links
hiddenslap:
left = hiddensdesk
hiddensdesk:
right = hiddenslap
end

section: options
screenSaverSync = true
end