2 graphics cards will almost always work in dual-card configurations but there are a few acceptions. Some lesser-supported cards tend to not work if they weren't the primary card (the one the console came up on). As long as you don't have two of those, you can still get it to work. Something that should be clarified is the monochrome operation. Did you mean this monitor is a grayscale analog monitor or a real 1 bit monochrome? As Marc La France pointed out, most of the drivers do not actually support 1 bit modes and you may have to resort to using the vga driver for that head, which will have some resolution restrictions. Yes, you will be able to run a window manager on one and no window manager on the other if you wish. I haven't had much experience with the Matrox driver since the G400 days. I do believe it supports a separate screens mode, but I know it doesn't support 1 bit modes and there may be some problems trying to get a grayscale mode to work in dual-head mode due to there not being any palette capabilities on the second head. Mark. On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Harrington, Todd wrote: > Hi Mark, > > Thanks. That was a great reply. So, If I select 2 graphics cards, and I run one instance of XFree86 on 2 graphics cards, can I then run a window manager on one graphics card and just the X server itself on the other? Is this a low-risk configuration if I commit to doing it? In other words, will almost any graphics card that I purchase that allows me to run XFree86 on it by itself work in this configuration? > > As far dual-head goes, I was looking the Matrox G450. > > Thanks! > Todd > > -----Original Message----- > From: xfree86-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xfree86-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx]On > Behalf Of Mark Vojkovich > Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 1:27 PM > To: xfree86@xxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Dual Screens > > > You can run one instance of XFree86 on multiple graphics cards > simultaneously. These will show up as separate X screens. This > all depends on which cards you were planning on using and how > advanced is the driver support for them. Some dual-head cards may > support this if they support a separate-screens mode (separate-screens > are required if the two heads will have different X visuals). I'm > more optimistic about this working for separate cards rather than > a single dual-head card, but it just depends which cards you were > trying to use. If you happen to have some graphics cards lying > around, it would be good to experiment before commiting to something. > > Mark. > > On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Harrington, Todd wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > We are going to be running RedHat Enterprise v3 or v4 and want to be able to run two displays with different images on them. One will be a general purpose X Windowing system with keyboard and mouse and the display will be a Viewsonic LCD. The second display will run an X windowing system and will be used to display graphics to a monochrome black/green display. > > > > Is this dual "independent" display feature part of XFree86 4.x? Or do I need a special graphics card? Can I use any graphics card to do this? Can I use a dual headed card to save some PCI slots. > > > > Thanks, > > Todd > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > XFree86 mailing list > > XFree86@xxxxxxxxxxx > > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xfree86 > > > _______________________________________________ > XFree86 mailing list > XFree86@xxxxxxxxxxx > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xfree86 > > _______________________________________________ > XFree86 mailing list > XFree86@xxxxxxxxxxx > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xfree86 > _______________________________________________ XFree86 mailing list XFree86@xxxxxxxxxxx http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xfree86
