Dual-head config broke with update to 1.4.2

[Alex Deucher]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:05 AM, Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:35:14 -0500
> Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The number of zaphod users is relatively
>> small and the amount of developer resources to support it is
>> relatively high.  More people want to be able to use and dynamically
>> switch between all their connectors than want to use zapod.
>
> I disagre with you here.
> There are quite a few people who use that mode.
> Many of my friends use it that way and i was too
> until the mga driver got so horribly broken with noone
> caring to fix bugs, even if patches were avaibale,
> that i pulled my G550 out after 10y of use and replaced
> it with a radoen. Now i'm waiting for the driver evolve
> enough so i can use it again (there are more bugs in
> the currentl release that i've hit within a few hours
> of using, than you can count).
>
> As such. I strongly suggest, taht the xorg developers
> should think about providing a way to use zaphood mode
> with xrandr, for all those people who use their computer
> differently than you do.
>
> I mean, it cannot be that difficult to do that. After all
> xrandr provides the more difficult technique to move windows
> back and forth between the screens. It should be an easy thing
> to decouble them and put each of the physical screens into
> its own X11 screen.

Dualhead as implemented by xrandr is actually much less complex than
zaphod mode.  It's basically one huge desktop with two monitors
pointed at different parts of it.  zaphod mode is relatively complex
to implement.  You basically have two approaches:
1. Use the existing method where the driver loads twice for one card
and resources are split.
2. Write/modify a window manager that behaves like zaphod mode.

I agree some people like zaphod mode, and it would be nice to support
it better, however, I only have limited spare time.  It would be nice
if someone with some interest in zaphod mode would step up to help out
instead of just complaining when it breaks.

Alex