Re: Using multiple monitors

[Michael <macallan%netbsd.org@localhost>]

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Hello,

On Jan 22, 2011, at 7:57 AM, Christopher Berardi wrote:

> I don't know if this is even possible, but -- could NetBSD be setup  
> to either
> have a *console* session (using a program like window, screen, or  
> tmux) spread
> over two or more monitors?
>
> Or, could it be setup to have a separate tty assigned to each  
> monitor (e.g.,
> tty1 on monitor 1, tty2 on monitor 2, etc.) and then convienent  
> hotkeys be
> assigned to 1) switch between ttys (like it currently uses ctrl-alt- 
> [1-9]) and
> 2) switch between active monitors (e.g., ctrl-alt-shift-[1-9])?

Sort of, but probably not on i386 thanks to firmware limitations.
First, the vga driver only supports one instance but there are other  
drivers that have no such limit. The problem is that most of these  
drivers depend on the firmware to initialise the graphics chip and run  
with whatever graphics mode they find. On sparc for example the  
firmware will setup all connected graphics devices and NetBSD will  
support tty output on whatever it has drivers for. On other  
architectures it's hit and miss - OpenFirmware may or may not setup  
additional devices, if it does we can usually use them.
The /dev/ entries for wsdisplay0 would be ttyE*, for wsdisplay1 it's  
ttyF* and so on, all on the same major number, ttyE0 with minor 0,  
ttyF0 at 256 and so on.
Some drivers support mode setting ( like machfb, radeonfb, voodoofb )  
but at least machfb and radeonfb need to be cold started by firmware  
( to program clocks and such which can not be probed so it must be  
done by the card's firmware ) - if that does not happen we can not use  
the card. OpenFirmware usually does this kind of minimal setup on all  
devices with compatible ROMs even if it doesn't setup a usable  
graphics mode, PC BIOSes probably don't.
You'll have better luck trying to setup X to use additional graphics  
devices.

have fun
Michael

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