Separate X Screens - possible on Intel Integrated HD Graphics?

[Ken Taylor]

On 01/17/2016 06:25 PM, Liam R. E. Quin wrote:
> On Fri, 2016-01-15 at 17:46 -0500, Ken Taylor wrote:
>> Separate X screens gives me EXACTLY what I am after. That is why I
>> asked the question.  Please see this page:
>> http://jsmylinux.no-ip.org/basic-information/dual-monitors/ and have
>> a
>> look towards the bottom titled "Individual Panels".
> It seems to me a reasonable thing to want. I used to use a similar
> setup years ago on Sun hardware. But as far as I can tell the driver
> for the Intel integrated graphics doesn't support multiple X screens in
> that way. The NVidia driver does, but (of course) only for an NVidia
> graphics card. On the other hand,
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XineramaHowTo
> has a configuration using xinerama and an intel card, so it may depend
> on the exact card you have (and I think in that case they're trying to
> get to a single desktop with multiple monitors, but disabling xinerama
> mode may get you closer to what you want).
>
> It might be easier to buy an NVidia or ATI graphics card (after
> checking for support)... which is even possible on some laptops.
>
> Liam
>
Thanks Liam,

I will see what I can determine from the link you provided.  From what I 
have read about Xinerama it is intended to put multiple screens back 
together - for example if they are on two discrete video cards - not to 
break one card into two screens.  Still, there is an Intel specific 
xorg.conf example which I will study.

As to purchasing a discrete card... I would certainly do that for a 
"real" PC or workstation.  In fact I just replaced the obsolete Nvidia 
card which came in my Dell Studio XPS 8000 with a Quadro K420.  It runs 
two 24" monitors separately just fine. The Inspiron 3050s are tiny toys 
- sort of like the Intel NUC. No room for ANY expansion. However, as 
they have two monitor connections... sort of a challenge. And 
considering that most processors Intel makes these days contain 
graphics... I hate to have to pay more for a Xeon just to avoid the 
built in graphics - sort of like having to pay for Windoze on a PC I 
plan to run Linux on :-(

Regards,

Ken