[Gllug] Multiple monitors

N.Pauli npauli at st-johns.org.uk
Fri Jan 12 00:14:44 UTC 2007


On Thu, 11 Jan, - Tethys wrote:
> I have a need to connect multiple monitors to a Linux machine for
> displaying *lots* of status information. What's the best way to do
> this? Dual head is easy, but the requirement here is for something
> like 16 screens.
> 
> I know there are 4 way cards available. Are these supported by the
> free drivers? I'm only interested in 2D output, so ATI and Nvidia
> cards aren't a problem, so long as the multi-headed aspects of the
> cards are supported by the free drivers. Can I put multiple of those
> cards into a single machine Presumably they'd be PCIE cards, so as
> long as I have enough PCIE slots, I'd be fine, right?
> 
> The other option is to use Xdmx, and spread the display out over
> multiple machines. But even then, it's probably in my interests to
> maximize the number of screens per machine. Are there any limitations
> I need to know about here? For example, if bus bandwidth makes
> connecting more than N screens (or more likely, N pixels of screen
> real estate) not a viable proposition, what's the value of N? What
> sort of interconnect would I need between the display machines, and
> the Xdmx server? Is 1000baseT good enough, or do I need to go to
> something more exotic?

There was a firm up at the last Linux World who were doing exactly that - and I can't remember their name. Maybe someone else can. They were running an Internet Cafe downstairs. I've just bunged an Nvidia card in my machine to do twinview. Don't use the Ubuntu or Debian 'nvidia-glx' package. Save yourself a lot of grief and use the latest drivers from the Nvidia site.

Nigel

-- 
Nigel Pauli
Network Manager
St. John's School, Northwood





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