Xinerama Part of X

A reader writes "Xinerama will be part of X. "This is the FIRST and ONLY case of XFree86 code going into the shared implementation" Read more at http://www.xfree86.org/#xinerama. Does this mean even better movies? Or, are they only concerned with technical quality?"

Movies?

[daegol]

Huh? What does this have to do with movies? I thought xinerama was just the standard for multihead setups.

Re:Movies?

[highcaffeine]

You're correct, the submitter was an idiot. Xinerama has absolutely nothing to do with movies and everything to do with connecting multiple monitors to a single box.

Xinerama is not necessary for multi-head setups. However, without it each monitor is a separate screen (i.e. :0.0, :0.1, etc.) and you cannot move windows between them. With Xinerama, you can make them act as a single display, allowing you to run only one instance of your window manager and drag windows between them.

But, there is a downside. Hardware accelerated OpenGL for most video cards does not cooperate with Xinerama. I've been sort of waiting ever since XFree86 4.0 came out for nVidia to find a way around this in their drivers so that I can get away from software OpenGL rendering. I'm not holding my breath, though, as I imagine that splitting a single OpenGL scene at an arbitrary point across two completely separate devices is a tricky thing to handle very well.

The OpenGL problem aside, having several LCD screens all lined up next to each other is a Nice Thing. Just tell your boss you're more productive with such a setup -- I am honestly more productive being able to spread my work out over a wall of screens. I just run out of PCI slots real fast. ;)

Re:Movies?

[XO]

At one point, I had a dual-head setup .. it worked fantastically in Windows - even though the hardware supposedly wasn't compatible with it:

Voodoo 3 3500
old PCI ATI Mach64 2-D board

In X, the hardware was listed as being compatible, and it didn't work at all with xinerama. The voodoo picture was all skewed up, even though the Mach64 was ok.. and it was supposed to be non-compatible with the mach 64!

Re:Movies?

[bsartist]

I imagine that splitting a single OpenGL scene at an arbitrary point across two completely separate devices is a tricky thing

Not to mention that only one of those devices is going to be in an AGP slot. The others, being relegated to PCI slots, are going to be a lot slower.

Which brings up something I've been wondering about - where are the boards with multiple AGP slots? It would seem to be a natural, now that virtually every OS in wide use supports multiple video cards, but I haven't seen any. Is there a technical reason why it wouldn't work, or is there simply not enough demand to make it worthwhile for a board maker to design and market such a beast?

Re:Movies?

[domninus.DDR]

Hmmmm? The Geforce 4 line supports dual-head [nvidia.com] display out of one AGP card. ATI 8500 cards might, I know they have both VGA and DVI outs. Hell, the new Matrox Parhelia cards [matrox.com] support THREE monitors (check out the surround gaming screenshots [matroxusers.com]). I imagine making a new northbridge chip with another set of memory bandwidth to a 4~8x agp slot wouldnt be as easy as going down to Best Buy and getting one of these cards.

What Xinerama Is

[ConeFish]

For a look at what Xinerama is all about, take a look here:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Xinerama-HOWTO.html

I guess having a second monitor would let you watch a movie while working on screen 1, but that is not what Xinerama really is.

I think the poster was getting it confised with Xine (http://xine.sourceforge.net/)

Re:What Xinerama Is (spelling err)

[ConeFish]

confised -> confused, if there are any spellchecking trolls watching :)

XFree - X

[crow]

The significance here is that The Open Group's official X11 codebase will incorporate Xinerama code from XFree86. While X11 has incorporated bug fixes, this is the first time they've taken significant non-bug-fix code from XFree86.

Personally, I don't see this as too big of a deal. The Open Group hasn't done any real development since they shut down the Cambridge RI four years ago and sold off the Grenoble RI. (I was employed at the Cambridge Research Institute at the time.) Apparently they're going to do another release of X, but since they don't have a development team, any new code has to come from outside.

Quick kudos to the XFree86 team

[Outland Traveller]

When open source success stories are swapped over the corporate campfires, Apache and Linux are quick to be mentioned. However, XFree86 predates them both, and comprises a much larger tarball! XFree86 has been around so long that perhaps people take it for granted and assume that it has been there.

However, far away from the public spotlight XFree86 was at first spurned by the X consortium of extremely well-funded corporate players, and then grudgingly accepted, and now is the leading force in X development. Now that's an open source success story.

Re:Quick kudos to the XFree86 team

[gehrehmee]

Yay larger tarball! We win! ;)

Re:Quick kudos to the XFree86 team

[walt-sjc]

Um, this announcement has NOTHING to do with xfree86 tarballs. Xinerama was ALREADY THERE. What it has to do with is that xinerama will now be part of the main X consortium's [x.org] tree. This will (eventually) make commercial X servers (such as those in Solaris, AIX, etc.) slightly larger due to xinerama support being "backported". Not enough so to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. It can take YEARS for X Consortium's members to get the latest code into their products.

Re:Quick kudos to the XFree86 team

[gehrehmee]

The announcement, no. The parent, yes.

Re:Quick kudos to the XFree86 team

[Guy Harris]

hat it has to do with is that xinerama will now be part of the main X consortium's tree.

Umm, this blurb on the Xinerama task force at X.org [x.org] seems to indicate that it's been "part of the main X consortium's tree" since X11R6.4.

This will (eventually) make commercial X servers (such as those in Solaris, AIX, etc.) slightly larger due to xinerama support being "backported".

Xinerama is already in Solaris 8's X server, at least according to this item on Solaris 8 [sun.com].

The actual item on the XFree86 Web site (go to their home page [xfree86.org] and search for "Xinerama"; the anchor tag for the Xinerama item is incorrect, with "name=anniversary", so at least with some browsers the "Xinerama" link doesn't work) says:

Public Review of the Draft Standard of the Xinerama Extension to the X Window System, sponsored by X.Org.

After its initial release, as part of X11R6.4, the Xinerama Extension API and code base splintered as many different developers ported it to their X Window System base. The Xinerama task force of X.Org has been working with a cross section of developers to create a new API that meets the needs of all, to replace the various versions currently available. The goal of this task force has been to create an API that can become an X Window System standard. The task force has been following the new Standards process defined by X.Org. The API is now at Stage 4 of that process: Public Review.

The Xinerama extension provides a mechanism for a multi-headed system to function as one large screen. Windows can span multiple screens and can move from one screen to another.

The review period for this proposed standard ends July 26, 2002. A mail list for discussion of the proposed standard has been created, [e-mail]. This mail list is publicly available, and archived on the project website. The web site for this project is Xinerama@Sourceforge . Further documenation and code is available there.

This is the FIRST and ONLY case of XFree86 code going into the shared implementation. Previously all exchanges were bug fixes.

I don't know whether that means that code from XFree86 will be used as part or all of the implementation for the updated Xinerama, or that the item about new code going in belonged with some other item the bulk of which is missing, but I don't think the XFree86 folk originated Xinerama - they picked up their initial implementation from X11R6.4.

Very true

[fm6]

The irony is that people now consider XFree "part of Linux". Think where we'd all be without this project. Let's each of us buy them a beer!

Re:Very true

[tigersha]

Great idea. With so much beer hlaf will die of alcohol poisoning and the rest will certainly not get any work done :)

no movies

[photon317]

Does this mean better movies? Score another one for slashdot.

Xinerama is a multhead thing, not a movie thing.

link to my config file (semi-rare hardware config)

[TheGratefulNet]

for those few people who want to use dual SGI 1600sw flatpanel displays in xinerama mode, I have a config file that works. it wasn't hard but other than the developer and perhaps 5 other people in the world (just a WAG), very little info is out there that confirms this actually work.

it does work. I have a dualhead xinerama setup at work and also the same exact setup at home.

dual_1600sw [grateful.net]

I'm providing this info so that people know this config works. I asked many people at sgi if this would work (even posted to the usenet groups for sgi) and no one knew (surprising, eh?)

cheers

[johnjones]

anyone think about doing a DRI module for the i128 ?

regards

john jones

better movies!

[The Pim]

Does this mean even better movies?

Yes, all of Hollywood has been anxiously waiting for this code to land, so they can lose their reliance on star-studded, special-effects-laden blockbusters, and focus on original stories, intelligent writing, and quality acting.

Configurable?

[Trevelyan]

I hope it can still be turned off.
I prefere to have seperate/independant WM in each screen.
One main reason for this is with xinerama on screen 1 wont have full HW acceleration from my radeon.

Re:Configurable?

[vrt3]

One main reason for this is with xinerama on screen 1 wont have full HW acceleration from my radeon.

This should really be fixed. Windows has supported this for years. Only when a window is partially on one screen and partially on another, Windows resorts to software 3D rendering; otherwise hardware rendering is fully supported. Quake on one screen while monitoring WinAmp and a mailclient on the other screen, just great.

Re:Configurable?

[i_am_nitrogen]

It worked fine with my voodoo 3. It's these stupid vendor-provided binary only drivers that have problems. The stupidest thing of all is nVidia replacing the system libgl.so with their own SGI-licensed implementation. That's one major reason why you'll never get 3D acceleration on all monitors if one of them is powered by an nVidia.

Better movies.

[AJWM]

I don't know if the original poster was kidding or not, but several other posters seem to think he was an idiot for suggesting it.

However, those of us with an appreciation for the history of the technology of cinema recognize that the term "Xinerama" is a play on the name "Cinerama" for good reason.

True Cinerama technology was not merely wide screen but highly curved, partially wraparound screen that required three projectors (in sync!) to cover. The visual effect was simply awesome (the first time I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" was in a Cinerama theatre. Wow.)

Xinerama lets you, if you want, set up three (or more) monitors side-by-side, with the outer ones angled slightly, and place a wide-screen window across all three. Just like Cinerama. I don't know well the video rendering for, say, a DVD or MPEG player interacts with Xinerama, but yeah, you could have better movies.

xinerama x11 mac os x

[mbaudis]

for the mac os x port of x11, xinerama support has been there for several months (previous 4.1 in first versions). works without problems in rootless mode (that is, showing aqua as well as x11). the "new" announcement seems to be mostly about unifying the different attempts? (powerbook g4/550 with add. 18" TFT)