[tclug-list] tough problem to unravel

[o1bigtenor]

Greetings

I had some issues with my system and although I didn't need to, in
retrospect, re-install - - - well I did.
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

So on this new install I have been working to install the interesting
(?) programs that I have had previously. In reading emails I noticed
that I was unable to copy and paste using ctrl-c and ctrl-v. Have been
looking at key bindings and the clipboard. Have reinstall x11-apps and
lxsession as both are linked to clipboard use. Have also reinstall all
the xkb resources (that I can find). Still no joy though!

Any ideas or suggestions as to the culprit (or the recalcitrant
directories/files whatever) would be gratefully accepted.

Regards

Dee

[Andrew Lunn]

Post by o1bigtenor
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

Are the two cards from the same vendor? Or different vendors?

I've done this in the past using Xinerama.

Andrew

[o1bigtenor]

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

Are the two cards from the same vendor? Or different vendors?

Both are nvidia 570 cards from the same vendor.

Post by Andrew Lunn
I've done this in the past using Xinerama.

I am using xinerama but using 2 xscreens. Its using only 1 xscreen that
I don't know anything about!

Regards

Dee

[Andrew Lunn]

Post by o1bigtenor

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

Are the two cards from the same vendor? Or different vendors?

Both are nvidia 570 cards from the same vendor.

Post by Andrew Lunn
I've done this in the past using Xinerama.

I am using xinerama but using 2 xscreens. Its using only 1 xscreen that
I don't know anything about!

You should not need to use Xinerama in order to have one Xserver merge
two screens on a single card.

Ah, hold on. Are you using the proprietary nvidia driver? Maybe you
have to use Xinerama for that driver?

All the open source drivers should drive two displays on one card
without any additional configuration.

You might also find the open source driver just correctly finds two
cards, four displays, and it all just works out of the box.

But there is a trade off. The open source drivers might just work out
of the box, the nvidia proprietary stuff will give you better
performance. If it is a gaming machine, you probably want the
performance. If its just a developers box, where you just need large
screen acreage, mostly text, the open source driver might be
sufficient.

Andrew

[Marc Skinner]

I have dual gtx 960s running 6 monitors, 3 each. I had to use the
nouveau open source driver to put everything in 1 xscreen. If your
using the nvidia propriety driver, it has an artificial limit of 3
monitors per xscreen. They do this to force power/pros to go with their
quadra line which doesn't have the limit. I have run this setup
successfully for 2 years, but on Fedora. I'm running F28 right now,
with KDE.

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

Are the two cards from the same vendor? Or different vendors?

Both are nvidia 570 cards from the same vendor.

Post by Andrew Lunn
I've done this in the past using Xinerama.

I am using xinerama but using 2 xscreens. Its using only 1 xscreen that
I don't know anything about!

You should not need to use Xinerama in order to have one Xserver merge
two screens on a single card.
Ah, hold on. Are you using the proprietary nvidia driver? Maybe you
have to use Xinerama for that driver?
All the open source drivers should drive two displays on one card
without any additional configuration.
You might also find the open source driver just correctly finds two
cards, four displays, and it all just works out of the box.
But there is a trade off. The open source drivers might just work out
of the box, the nvidia proprietary stuff will give you better
performance. If it is a gaming machine, you probably want the
performance. If its just a developers box, where you just need large
screen acreage, mostly text, the open source driver might be
sufficient.
Andrew
_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list

[Clug]

I'm pretty sure I've run 4 monitors off one nvidia card in the past, all
on the same X screen. Did they implement such a limit recently?

I have dual gtx 960s running 6 monitors, 3 each.  I had to use the
nouveau open source driver to put everything in 1 xscreen.  If your
using the nvidia propriety driver, it has an artificial limit of 3
monitors per xscreen.

_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
tclug-***@mn-linux.org
http://mailman.mn-linux

[Iznogoud]

Post by Clug
I'm pretty sure I've run 4 monitors off one nvidia card in the past, all
on the same X screen. Did they implement such a limit recently?

Sounds like this is with the open drivers, not the proprietary ones. I did not
know the issues with limits on the number of monitors per X-screan until I
read it here a few posts ago.

What may not be working well is the 3D accelerations, in all cases. Running
'glxinfo' should shed light on that. Nouveau has DRI and for simple 3D accel.
it is fine.

The thing about the open drivers is that the OpenGL standard supported is not
much farther than 2.x, or maybe 3, while anything coming out of the nvidia
factory will likely be the latest (4 or something).

nouveau has given me some crashes, sparsely. And they are pretty bad (system is
responsive, but restarting X, or sanything else, does not work and I need a
full reboot).

(You people have a lot of monitors. I use one, both at work and at home.)

[Clug]

Post by Iznogoud
Sounds like this is with the open drivers, not the proprietary ones. I did not

Definitely with the proprietary ones -- the free ones at the time were
horrible. This was pre-nouveau.

[Iznogoud]

Post by Clug
Definitely with the proprietary ones -- the free ones at the time were
horrible. This was pre-nouveau.

I remember "nv" and actually doing 3D graphics on the 3Dfx Voodoo over what
was called... memory fails me... "Glide" was the name!

nouveau changed all of that for me.

[o1bigtenor]

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

Are the two cards from the same vendor? Or different vendors?

Both are nvidia 570 cards from the same vendor.

Post by Andrew Lunn
I've done this in the past using Xinerama.

I am using xinerama but using 2 xscreens. Its using only 1 xscreen that
I don't know anything about!

You should not need to use Xinerama in order to have one Xserver merge
two screens on a single card.
Ah, hold on. Are you using the proprietary nvidia driver? Maybe you
have to use Xinerama for that driver?
All the open source drivers should drive two displays on one card
without any additional configuration.

You bet they run 2 screens from one card but they also don't seem to see the
other 2 cards (3 total) so that didn't much help things.

Post by Andrew Lunn
You might also find the open source driver just correctly finds two
cards, four displays, and it all just works out of the box.

Sorry - - - - not a chance!!

Post by Andrew Lunn
But there is a trade off. The open source drivers might just work out
of the box, the nvidia proprietary stuff will give you better
performance. If it is a gaming machine, you probably want the
performance. If its just a developers box, where you just need large
screen acreage, mostly text, the open source driver might be
sufficient.

Not a gamer (at all!) but I do want things to work and as I couldn't tame
nouveau - - - - oh well it was the proprietary solution (I don't think nvidia
really gives a flying rat's patootie about linux drivers!!! as their track
record shows (if someone wants to argue!!).)

I spent far too many hours over far too many days to try to achieve my own
solution to getting nouveau working. If someone has a solution - - - well I'm
all ears but I couldn't figure out how to use randr1.5, which CAN do this, set
up to use multiple cards and multiple monitors.

Regards

Dee

[o1bigtenor]

Post by o1bigtenor

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor

Post by Andrew Lunn

Post by o1bigtenor
Running as previously, on Debian testing (10 or buster) with a pile of
ram and and (lots of resources), with what may be more unusual is 2
graphics cards and 4 monitors set up as 2 x-screens. (Would love to
condense that into 1 screen if someone has the know how and can
describe it but 2 works well enough even if 1 would be quite slick
(and very 'interesting').)

Are the two cards from the same vendor? Or different vendors?

Both are nvidia 570 cards from the same vendor.

Post by Andrew Lunn
I've done this in the past using Xinerama.

I am using xinerama but using 2 xscreens. Its using only 1 xscreen that
I don't know anything about!

You should not need to use Xinerama in order to have one Xserver merge
two screens on a single card.
Ah, hold on. Are you using the proprietary nvidia driver? Maybe you
have to use Xinerama for that driver?
All the open source drivers should drive two displays on one card
without any additional configuration.

You bet they run 2 screens from one card but they also don't seem to see the
other 2 cards (3 total) so that didn't much help things.

Post by Andrew Lunn
You might also find the open source driver just correctly finds two
cards, four displays, and it all just works out of the box.

Sorry - - - - not a chance!!

Post by Andrew Lunn
But there is a trade off. The open source drivers might just work out
of the box, the nvidia proprietary stuff will give you better
performance. If it is a gaming machine, you probably want the
performance. If its just a developers box, where you just need large
screen acreage, mostly text, the open source driver might be
sufficient.

Not a gamer (at all!) but I do want things to work and as I couldn't tame
nouveau - - - - oh well it was the proprietary solution (I don't think nvidia
really gives a flying rat's patootie about linux drivers!!! as their track
record shows (if someone wants to argue!!).)
I spent far too many hours over far too many days to try to achieve my own
solution to getting nouveau working. If someone has a solution - - - well I'm
all ears but I couldn't figure out how to use randr1.5, which CAN do this, set
up to use multiple cards and multiple monitors.
Regards
Dee

bump