2+ video cards should work as well in Ubuntu as Windows

[Jason Benjamin]

Hopefully this is addressed (or has already been addressed) with Mir.


On 08/05/2016 10:33 AM, Harry Coin wrote:
>
> In a regression in recent years, Linux has failed to keep a feature 
> well supported by its own earlier versions and all the various Windows 
> OSen: to simulate one large display as well with two or three possibly 
> dissimilar graphics cards as it does with one card with two or three 
> or more outputs.  The cost of graphics cards with many outputs comes 
> at a great price and performance hit over more cards with fewer 
> outputs.  This is becoming particularly pressing now that processors 
> support on-die graphics adapters in addition to PCI express graphics 
> slots supporting video adapters which almost never have the same 
> architecture as the on-die graphics.
>
> The arrival of pre-supposed support for compositing has ended the use 
> of Xinerama, which at one time was the approach to this problem.
>
> Many will be quick to note xrandr is 'the new way'.  For graphics 
> cards hosting on the same card enough outputs for the entire system, 
> it works  (though I've yet to find a linux system on which dragging 
> monitor icons when there are 3+ around the display configurator 
> works).  The command line interface for xrandr is, well, its own 
> entire body of obscure knowledge.  No real comparison to the simple 
> Windows display dragging and sizing GUI.
>
> As a work around, because try though I did for days of searching and 
> attempting solutions to make it work all-Ubuntu: I'm forced to use a 
> Windows front end which does a flawless job with two low/mid-market 
> graphics cards acting as an X server to a headless Ubuntu back-end. 
> It's ugly.  But without it no work happens.  All because Ubuntu can't 
> manage more than one graphics card forming a large simulated single 
> display as once it did.   Indeed there are vendor specific expensive 
> workarounds: Nvidia's SLI + base Mosaic, Radeon / Quadro multi-headed 
> 'whole paycheck' graphics cards, etc.  but Ubuntu shouldn't rely on 
> such things when others do so well with what was installed-- over 
> against Ubuntu upgrades that render a previously working system broken.
>
> I urge whoever it is that sets goals in these matters to consider 
> this.  Thanks for reading!
>
> Harry G Coin
> Bettendorf, Iowa
>
>

-- 
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