Quest for a dual with independent desktops

[Bruce Guenter]

On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 03:55:08PM -0600, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> I would like to know what features I should look for on a Radeon based
> video card so that I can have two separate desktops on each of two
> monitors.

As long as you want the same X server to manage the separate desktops,
this can be done through what is called "Zaphod" multi-head.  I'll
include the relevant parts of my config here:

> Are there Radeon cards with independent chipsets and dual monitor
> outputs available and is the radeon Xorg driver capable of giving me 
> independent desktops on each monitor?

I'm not sure what you mean by "independent chipsets", but pretty much
all (if not all) Radeon cards with multiple outputs can drive those
outputs independently.  AFAIK all the HD cards support this, with the
5xxx series and later supporting 3 heads per card.

===== /etc/X11/xorg.conf =====

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier "layout"
	Screen 0 "screen0"
	Screen 1 "screen1" RightOf "screen0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "radeon0"
    Driver      "radeon"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen 0
    Option	"ZaphodHeads"	"HDMI-0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "radeon1"
    Driver      "radeon"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen 1
    Option	"ZaphodHeads"	"DVI-0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "monitor0"
    Option      "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "monitor1"
    Option      "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "screen0"
    Device      "radeon0"
    Monitor     "monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection "Display"
    	Depth 24
	Virtual 1920 1080
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "screen1"
    Device      "radeon1"
    Monitor     "monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection "Display"
    	Depth 24
	Virtual 1280 1024
    EndSubSection
EndSection

-- 
Bruce Guenter <bruce at untroubled.org>                http://untroubled.org/
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