External monitor of Thinkpad W530

[Roberto Ragusa]

On 02/12/2013 11:22 AM, Gordan Bobic wrote:
> On 12/02/2013 09:42, Roberto Ragusa wrote:

>> I worked out a solution (but it is not easy) where I drive the LCD with Intel
>> and the external VGA with Nvidia.
>> The secondary X server can be run and stopped indipendently, it is actually
>> a good setup if you have to use a projector, because you have the LCD with your
>> usual desktop and the VGA with just what you need to be shown.
>>
>> I described how I did it some time ago here.
> 
> I'll try to find that, it sounds like exactly the sort of setup I am planning to use on my new system. The only downside I can see is that once you fire up the apps on the secondary X server you cannot drag the windows back to the primary.
> 
> You could, however, create a conf file for multiple display adapters with different drivers on the same X server. Last time I used such a setup was circa RH9/RHEL3 (pre-Fedora, using Matrox Millenium and ATI Mach64 cards), but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work (unless it is one of many things that got lobotomized over time for no good reason at all - but that's a whole different rant that I'm not going to go off on right now). Whether such a setup is "pluggable", i.e. will support adding/removing monitors/adapters/screens dynamically without a restart, I don't know - I never tried.

It is pluggable. Not automatic, but you can switch the VGA on and off with no issues
(including disabling Nvidia for power saving).

As you have two X servers, you are right, you can't drag things across.
But:

1) you can have two sessions for the same user (using different DEs,
in my case KDE as primary and fluxbox as secondary), so you have access
to all your files.

2) If you have VNC activated on the secondary, you will "remote" control it
from the primary. Very useful, you can jump with the mouse inside what
is projected, do something, than jump back out.

If you are interested search for:
"Re: nvidia optimus tricks (was: F16 - Adding a second video card)"
(24 July 2012)

Bye.

-- 
   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it