SUMMARY: Xvan and Alpha

From: Lars Bro <lbr_at_dksin.dk>
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 08:17:25 +0100

Hi, Managers.

A few weeks ago, I posted a question about Tru64unix with multiple
screens.

When running Tru64unix on a 6-screen system, you get 6 screens. This
means that when launching an application, you must pick which screen it
is supposed to run on. And that even with 6 screens, one window can only
fill one screen. The X server is said to support 6 screens, :0.0, :0.1,
:0.2, ... :0.5.

Actually, it took me some time to understand that I was facing an X
server problem and not a window manager problem.

On the internet, I found that one attempt to solve this problem was made
by the X server called XVan. This X server could "merge the frame
buffers" of the screens and represent them as one huge local:0.

Unfortunately, this XVan was written for Sunīs only (as such software
uses to be :-) But I tried this mailbox to see if anybody had tried to
compile it on Tru64unix.

I got a reply from Peter Jones, (jones_at_terrier.East.Sun.COM) telling
that XVan was only ported to Solaris. Thanks.

I also got an answer from Tom Blinn, but this time a forward from his
colleague Irene, who told me almost everything I needed to know: The
feature (extention, that is) is going to be part of X11R6.4 and called
Xinerama. It will be part of the X server in Tru64unix 5.0

Until then, it is possible to load the extention by installing Panoramix
which is located on "Associated Products" volume 1.

It is simple and it (almost)works. You have to define how the screens
are to be arranged so that the X server knows what to do when you cross
the edge of the screen. And you also need to define the way the screens
are arranged. In my example, screens are arranged like this:

(uerf -R)
tga0 at tpci0 slot 17
tga1 at pci1000 slot 13
tga2 at pci2000 slot 14
tga3 at pci1000 slot 13
tga4 at pci1000 slot 14
tga5 at pci1000 slot 15


                   +------+ +------+ +------+
                   | tga3 | | tga4 | | tga5 |
                   +------+ +------+ +------+
                   +------+ +------+ +------+
                   | tga0 | | tga1 | | tga2 |
                   +------+ +------+ +------+

The resulting command line for the X server to be put into
/var/X11/Xserver.conf was:

args <
 -pn +panoramiX
 -edge_bottom0 -1 -edge_top0 3 -edge_left0 -1 -edge_right0 1
 -edge_top1 4 -edge_bottom1 -1 -edge_left1 0 -edge_right1 2
 -edge_top2 5 -edge_bottom2 -1 -edge_left2 1 -edge_right2 -1
 -edge_top3 -1 -edge_bottom3 0 -edge_left3 -1 -edge_right3 4
 -edge_top4 -1 -edge_bottom4 1 -edge_left4 3 -edge_right4 5
 -edge_top5 -1 -edge_left5 4 -edge_right5 -1 -edge_bottom5 2
 -screenOrder 3,4,5,0,1,2
>

Provided directly by an example in the documentation :-D

BUT...

On the lower displays (tga0, tga1, tga2), the colors are all wrong and
the windows are all flat (not with the nice relief). To start with, I
missed the -screenOrder specifier. This made a lot of confusion, for
example, the menu from button-1 when in tga0 showed up in tga3 but for
tga1, it correctly showed up in tga1. And I could not change the size of
the windows. Now, everything works fine but the colours and the relief.
I can make a huge xclock -update 1 that walks around all six displays.

The X server prints the following error messages:
# cat xdm-errors
Screen 0 ZLXp2-EV5 revision # 2 8 bits/pixel 2097152 bytes VRAM
Screen 1 ZLXp2-EV5 revision # 2 8 bits/pixel 2097152 bytes VRAM
ffbTGA2InitProc: PCI bus not 0 or buffer not in direct windows, DMA
disabled
Screen 2 ZLXp2-EV5 revision # 2 8 bits/pixel 2097152 bytes VRAM
ffbTGA2InitProc: PCI bus not 0 or buffer not in direct windows, DMA
disabled
Screen 3 ZLXp2-EV5 revision # 2 8 bits/pixel 2097152 bytes VRAM
ffbTGA2InitProc: PCI bus not 0 or buffer not in direct windows, DMA
disabled
Screen 4 ZLXp2-EV5 revision # 2 8 bits/pixel 2097152 bytes VRAM
ffbTGA2InitProc: PCI bus not 0 or buffer not in direct windows, DMA
disabled
Screen 5 ZLXp2-EV5 revision # 2 8 bits/pixel 2097152 bytes VRAM
ffbTGA2InitProc: PCI bus not 0 or buffer not in direct windows, DMA
disabled
sh: /usr/lib/X11/xkb/xkbcomp: not found
Couldn't load XKB keymap, falling back to pre-XKB keymap
#


Any ideas ?





-- 
                               |||
                               \|/  ;_;
What does a process need        |   /"\
to become a daemon ?            |   \v/
                                |    | 
- a fork                        o---/!\---
                                |   |_|
                                |  _/ \_
Lars Bro (lbr_at_dksin.dk)     Adtranz Signal    +45 36 39 01 88
Received on Wed Apr 14 1999 - 21:09:00 NZST

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