Manual Multi-Screen Configuration

Alternatively you can configure multiple screens by manually editing the /etc/X11/ Xf86Config file. The following example will show you how to configure three (3) screens.

Xf86Config Changes

There are three sections in the configuration file you need to change:

1.ServerLayout section contains references to the Screen sections.

2.Screen sections contain references to the Device sections.

3.Device sections.

For this example, we will assume there are two (2) HP PCI AMD Radeon 7000 Graphics Adapters in the system. These graphics cards have the device files /dev/gvid0 and /dev/gvid1. We will change the Xf86Config file to allow for a three-screened (3) multi-head system. In this configuration, two (2) screens will come from the first graphics card (e.g. /dev/gvid0) and the remaining screen will come from the second graphics card (e.g. /dev/gvid1).

The lowest level is the Device section. This maps a physical device to a device identifier. The three (3) Device sections for this example follows:

Section “Device”

Identifier “ATI Radeon 7000 (0) Connector 1”

DeviceFile “/dev/gvid0”

EndSection

Section “Device”

Identifier “ATI Radeon 7000 (0) Connector 2”

DeviceFile “/dev/gvid0”

Screen 1

EndSection

Section “Device”

Identifier “ATI Radeon 7000 (1) Connector 1”

DeviceFile “/dev/gvid1”

EndSection

The first device, ATI Radeon 7000 (0) Connector 1 is the first screen on the first device. the second device, ATI Radeon 7000 (0) Connector 2 is the second screen on the first device. Note that it has the Screen 1 field, which selects the second video output on the graphics card. The third device, ATI Radeon 7000 (1) Connector 1 is the first screen on the second device.

Once the Device sections are defined, you can define the Screen section, which maps a screen to a physical device. The Screen sections use the Identifier field that was defined for each of the Device sections. The three (3) Screen sections for this example follows:

Section Screen

Identifier “Screen 0-1”

Device “ATI Radeon 7000 (0) Connector 1”

Monitor “Monitor 0”

#Include other Screen info here, including other SubSections EndSection

Section Screen

Identifier “Screen 0-2”

Device “ATI Radeon 7000 (0) Connector 2

Monitor “Monitor 0”

#Include other Screen info here, including other SubSections EndSection

Section Screen

Identifier “Screen 1-1”

Device “ATI Radeon 7000 (1) Connector 1”

Monitor “Monitor 0”

26 HP-UX Configuration