Dual Display problems in 12.10 and Raring

[Colin Law]

On 4 March 2013 22:42, Ric Moore <wayward4now at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/04/2013 04:58 PM, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> On 4 March 2013 21:35, Ric Moore <wayward4now at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 03/04/2013 05:21 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is anyone using dual displays in Raring alpha (or 12.10 for my second
>>>> issue) seeing the problems that I am?  Firstly, with the launcher on
>>>> the right hand display it is impossible to place anything (shortcuts,
>>>> files etc) on the left hand display, they bounce back tot the right
>>>> hand one when an attempt is made to place them there [1].  This is a
>>>> new bug on Raring.  The second one however [2] is equally annoying and
>>>> has been around since 12.10.  If, for example, two firefox windows are
>>>> opened, one on each display, and the FF launcher icon is clicked then
>>>> the focus always goes to the one on the same display as the launcher,
>>>> whichever FF window last had the focus.  This is not specific to FF,
>>>> it applies to any application.
>>>>
>>>> No-one so far has confirmed the bugs.  There was a big push to get
>>>> dual display support working well for 12.04 (if I remember correctly)
>>>> but things seem to have gone downhill since then.
>>>>
>>>> I am using Intel graphics.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I dunno, but I do know I have to use nVidia's configuration app, after
>>> loading the driver, to turn on twinview support. It sounds like you have
>>> one
>>> monitor as mirror to the other primary one?
>>
>>
>> No, normal side-by-side monitors.  As I said it all works perfectly
>> apart from the two problems above.
>>
>>>
>>> Now that I have three monitors with two identical nVidia cards, I have to
>>> use xinerama to run all three screens as one desktop window. That does
>>> seem
>>> to incur a performance hit.
>>>
>>> Without having some sort of driver supported app, I would suggest you
>>> google
>>> on xrandr as that might actually be a better way to go. I'm looking into
>>> that myself. There are several gui's for xrandr in the repos. I tried one
>>> but it didn't get there for me. Not yet. YMMV, Ric
>>
>>
>> As I said, the basic dual display operation is working fine, just the
>> specific issues I have described (possibly not very well described
>> given the confusion).
>
>
> Right, but that sort of problems are what twin-view and xandr and xinerama
> were created for. Say you have a lap top and a bigger display on your desk
> to use when you are at home. xandr is what provides that kind of support.
> Out-of-the-box, making two displays act as one takes additional "stuff".
> When it does work, it's kewl!
>
> So, I think you, old friend, may have to resign yourself to googling on
> xandr to ~customize~ your setup the way you want it. Open a terminal and
> type xandr -q and see if it's in use and defining things. If it is, there is
> the culprit, ~I believe~. (not 100% sure, of course)

Many thanks for trying to help Ric but I am not really looking for a
workaround at the moment.  Both the problems I am seeing are
regressions introduced in in 12.10 and now in Raring.  What I hoped
for is that someone could confirm the bugs in the hope that they might
get traction and get fixed.  If you use dual displays are you seeing
either of them?

Colin