[NTLUG:Discuss] Hmm, XF40 not supporting dual-headed G400? -- Re: Dual-headed G400

[Bryan -TheBS- Smith]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2000, J. Reeves Hall wrote:
> I have a G400 MAX video card, which has two monitor outputs. I'd like to
> get the second output to do something in Linux. I've heard that XFree86
> has issues with the way the G400 implements its dual headedness (namely,
> it only has one drawing engine for both of them), but I've also heard
> rumors that FBCon can output to both heads. I'd be happy if I could just
> display X on one head and a text console on the other. The two monitors
> are basically equivalent, and they are capable of the same resolutions.
> Any suggestions on how to activate the second head are welcome.
> 
> I'm running XF86 4.0 and kernel 2.3.99pre5, with the fbcon driver
> installed.

You're running XFree86 4.0?!?!?!  I thought it was supposed to
support dual-headed operation?  Maybe on different cards then, huh?
 I was almost to the point of buying one of those dual-headed
G400Max cards.  Hmmm.

Anyhoo, I'm going to dig into this a bit further as I am very
interested in why you can't get XFree86 4.0 to support it (I
haven't personally had the chance to use XFree86 4.0 yet).

TANGENT ...

BTW, did you have much trouble getting XFree86 4.0 and
kernel 2.3.99pre5 running?  What distro did you start with before
upgrading (if any)?  I have had a local guru have issues with
getting XF40 running and I read that the structures and
interfaces in 2.3.99preX/2.4.x require a number of support
binary/library changes and recompiles.

Any pointers for those of us looking to upgrade???

-- TheBS

-- 
 Bryan "TheBS" Smith -- Engineer, IT Professional and Hacker
      E-mail:  mailto:thebs at theseus.com,b.j.smith at ieee.org
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