| Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50816] |
Tue, 17 October 2006 06:03  |
Joseph B. Gurman
Messages: 31
Registered: April 2000
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Member |
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This one is currently stumping the ITTvis support folks, so I
thought I'd see if anyone else had stumbled upon it.
We're using a PowerMac G5 Quad with an NVIDIA Quadro 4500 (2 x
DualLink DVI) video card to drive two Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Displays
(2560 x 1600 LCD), plus an NVIDIA GeForce 6600 to run a smaller flat
panel (1280 x 1024 native res. LCD). The two large displays, which will
be mounted on a hallway wall, are meant to display time-lapse movies
from the imaging instruments (which have 2048 x 2048 detectors) on the
twin STEREO spacecraft, due for launch next week; the smaller display
is for control (e.g. a Terminal window to run IDL).
When we use the old PowerLan eXodus X11 implementation, we can get
a single, large, X11 window that spans the two large displays.
Animation, however, is slow, so we turned to Apple's X11, which for
some reason responds to an IDL request of the form:
IDL> window, 0, xsize = 4400, ysize = 1500
with a considerably smaller window (~ 1200 x 960), on one of the large
displays. Curiously, the small window can be expanded by dragging on
the control tab at the lower right corner, but not beyond the
boundaries of that single display.
xdpyinfo indicates that our X11 setup does include Xinerama
(screen-spanning) support, so my suspicion now focuses on X11 limiting
itself to the size of the small display despite putting the window on
one of the large displays. I may remove the GeForce and see if a
single-card, two-display configuration behaves differently.
I realize not many folks on this group are likely to have two
display cards and two massive displays, but if you do (regardless of
platform), I'd be interested to hear if you've experienced similar
issues.
Thanks in advance,
Joe Gurman
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50862 is a reply to message #50816] |
Fri, 20 October 2006 06:47  |
bogdanni
Messages: 2
Registered: October 2006
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Junior Member |
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>> I'm not sure you have to use full screen mode, but it's probably most
>> convenient as you'll at least get a consistent interface then.Actually, I see with twm you do need full screen mode because of the
> way you place windows when they start, but many other window managers
> will work fine mixed in with Aqua.
Actually, I was not recommending using twm in general. I mentioned it
only for testing purposes, since it's the only other window manager,
besides quartz-wm, installed by Mac OS X.
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50864 is a reply to message #50816] |
Fri, 20 October 2006 05:13 |
greg michael
Messages: 163
Registered: January 2006
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Senior Member |
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Hi Joseph,
We have two of these same screens hooked up to a linux PC, with two
duallink DVI cards (don't know which, exactly, but I know that they are
two different models), and it works fine with IDL applications making
single windows over both screens. I didn't have to make any code
modifications.
regards,
Greg
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50865 is a reply to message #50816] |
Fri, 20 October 2006 03:15 |
Edd Edmondson
Messages: 50
Registered: January 2003
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Member |
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Edd <eddedmondson@hotmail.com> wrote:
> bogdanni@gmail.com wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I did some tests and I think I may have a solution:
>> The problem is that the default window manager, quartz-wm doesn't seem
>> to allow sizing windows larger than one screen. You could use another
>> window manager, like twm which comes with the X11 distribution for Mac
>> OS X. To enable it, copy
>> /private/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to $HOME/.xinitrc and replace the last
>> line, "exec quartz-wm" with "exec twm".
>> Since twm cannot interact with normal Mac OS X you have to use X11 in
>> full screen mode. This is enabled via X11->Preferences->Ouput->Enable
>> the Enter Full Screen menu. Use Command-Option-A to enter/exit full
>> screen. If you are unfamiliar to twm, the left mouse button brings up a
>> menu where you can choose xterm (also, the initial placement of windows
>> is interactive).
> I'm not sure you have to use full screen mode, but it's probably most
> convenient as you'll at least get a consistent interface then.
Actually, I see with twm you do need full screen mode because of the
way you place windows when they start, but many other window managers
will work fine mixed in with Aqua.
--
Edd
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50866 is a reply to message #50816] |
Fri, 20 October 2006 03:10 |
Edd Edmondson
Messages: 50
Registered: January 2003
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Member |
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bogdanni@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> I did some tests and I think I may have a solution:
> The problem is that the default window manager, quartz-wm doesn't seem
> to allow sizing windows larger than one screen. You could use another
> window manager, like twm which comes with the X11 distribution for Mac
> OS X. To enable it, copy
> /private/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to $HOME/.xinitrc and replace the last
> line, "exec quartz-wm" with "exec twm".
> Since twm cannot interact with normal Mac OS X you have to use X11 in
> full screen mode. This is enabled via X11->Preferences->Ouput->Enable
> the Enter Full Screen menu. Use Command-Option-A to enter/exit full
> screen. If you are unfamiliar to twm, the left mouse button brings up a
> menu where you can choose xterm (also, the initial placement of windows
> is interactive).
I'm not sure you have to use full screen mode, but it's probably most
convenient as you'll at least get a consistent interface then.
It's probably not a bad idea to have a 'quartz-wm --only-proxy' line
before the 'exec twm', as this will let you keep the copy and paste
link to the Aqua side of things.
--
Edd
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50867 is a reply to message #50816] |
Fri, 20 October 2006 03:05 |
bogdanni
Messages: 2
Registered: October 2006
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Junior Member |
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Hi,
I did some tests and I think I may have a solution:
The problem is that the default window manager, quartz-wm doesn't seem
to allow sizing windows larger than one screen. You could use another
window manager, like twm which comes with the X11 distribution for Mac
OS X. To enable it, copy
/private/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to $HOME/.xinitrc and replace the last
line, "exec quartz-wm" with "exec twm".
Since twm cannot interact with normal Mac OS X you have to use X11 in
full screen mode. This is enabled via X11->Preferences->Ouput->Enable
the Enter Full Screen menu. Use Command-Option-A to enter/exit full
screen. If you are unfamiliar to twm, the left mouse button brings up a
menu where you can choose xterm (also, the initial placement of windows
is interactive).
That way, I can open a window wider than one screen from IDL, on my
computer (with two screens attached).
Also OpenGL still seems hardware accelerated, albeit, of course,
slower.
Hope this helps,
Bogdan
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50877 is a reply to message #50816] |
Thu, 19 October 2006 11:58 |
Rick Towler
Messages: 821
Registered: August 1998
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Senior Member |
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I'm sure this has crossed your mind, and I only mention this as you seem
to have a deadline that Apple might not be able to meet, but have you
considered running a linux based PC instead of your PowerMac? Or <gasp>
a windows PC? Your graphics adapters should work in an x86 box and my
multi-monitor experience on these platforms has been pretty positive.
On Win32 I have run IDL apps on a quad monitor setup very similar to
your 3 monitor setup (3 1600x1200 as display with 1 1280x1024 for
control) w/o issue using nVidia "dualview". On x86-32 linux I have only
worked with a dual monitor nVidia based system . Maybe someone with
experience running 3+ monitors on linux+IDL can post their thoughts.
-Rick
Joseph B. Gurman wrote:
> This one is currently stumping the ITTvis support folks, so I thought
> I'd see if anyone else had stumbled upon it.
>
> We're using a PowerMac G5 Quad with an NVIDIA Quadro 4500 (2 x
> DualLink DVI) video card to drive two Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Displays
> (2560 x 1600 LCD), plus an NVIDIA GeForce 6600 to run a smaller flat
> panel (1280 x 1024 native res. LCD). The two large displays, which will
> be mounted on a hallway wall, are meant to display time-lapse movies
> from the imaging instruments (which have 2048 x 2048 detectors) on the
> twin STEREO spacecraft, due for launch next week; the smaller display is
> for control (e.g. a Terminal window to run IDL).
>
> When we use the old PowerLan eXodus X11 implementation, we can get a
> single, large, X11 window that spans the two large displays. Animation,
> however, is slow, so we turned to Apple's X11, which for some reason
> responds to an IDL request of the form:
>
> IDL> window, 0, xsize = 4400, ysize = 1500
>
> with a considerably smaller window (~ 1200 x 960), on one of the large
> displays. Curiously, the small window can be expanded by dragging on the
> control tab at the lower right corner, but not beyond the boundaries of
> that single display.
>
> xdpyinfo indicates that our X11 setup does include Xinerama
> (screen-spanning) support, so my suspicion now focuses on X11 limiting
> itself to the size of the small display despite putting the window on
> one of the large displays. I may remove the GeForce and see if a
> single-card, two-display configuration behaves differently.
>
> I realize not many folks on this group are likely to have two display
> cards and two massive displays, but if you do (regardless of platform),
> I'd be interested to hear if you've experienced similar issues.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Joe Gurman
>
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #50878 is a reply to message #50816] |
Thu, 19 October 2006 10:19 |
K. Bowman
Messages: 330
Registered: May 2000
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Senior Member |
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This could be an ugly solution, but have you thought about using Xvfb
(the X virtual frame buffer) to generate the images and then use some
other Mac program (one not limited by monitor size) to display the
images?
I have had good luck with Xvfb on my Mac, but I have not tried
to use it with windows larger than my monitor.
In a script :
...
source /usr/local/rsi/idl_6.3/bin/idl_setup #Set up IDL paths
/usr/X11R6/bin/Xvfb :1 -screen 0 1280x1024x24 -ac -terminate & #Start X-windows server
setenv DISPLAY :1.0 #Set X-windows display
(echo GFS_MAKE_MAPS, MAKE_DATE\(${YEAR}, ${MONTH}, ${DAY}, ${HOUR}\) ; \
echo exit) | \
idl >>& ~/Projects/wxmaps/gfs_make_maps.log
killall -9 Xvfb #Kill X-windows server
Ken Bowman
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #51213 is a reply to message #50816] |
Mon, 06 November 2006 16:41 |
Karl Schultz
Messages: 341
Registered: October 1999
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Senior Member |
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On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:03:26 -0400, Joseph B. Gurman wrote:
> This one is currently stumping the ITTvis support folks, so I
> thought I'd see if anyone else had stumbled upon it.
>
> We're using a PowerMac G5 Quad with an NVIDIA Quadro 4500 (2 x
> DualLink DVI) video card to drive two Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Displays
> (2560 x 1600 LCD), plus an NVIDIA GeForce 6600 to run a smaller flat
> panel (1280 x 1024 native res. LCD). The two large displays, which will
> be mounted on a hallway wall, are meant to display time-lapse movies
> from the imaging instruments (which have 2048 x 2048 detectors) on the
> twin STEREO spacecraft, due for launch next week; the smaller display
> is for control (e.g. a Terminal window to run IDL).
>
> When we use the old PowerLan eXodus X11 implementation, we can get
> a single, large, X11 window that spans the two large displays.
> Animation, however, is slow, so we turned to Apple's X11, which for
> some reason responds to an IDL request of the form:
>
> IDL> window, 0, xsize = 4400, ysize = 1500
>
> with a considerably smaller window (~ 1200 x 960), on one of the large
> displays. Curiously, the small window can be expanded by dragging on
> the control tab at the lower right corner, but not beyond the
> boundaries of that single display.
>
> xdpyinfo indicates that our X11 setup does include Xinerama
> (screen-spanning) support, so my suspicion now focuses on X11 limiting
> itself to the size of the small display despite putting the window on
> one of the large displays. I may remove the GeForce and see if a
> single-card, two-display configuration behaves differently.
>
> I realize not many folks on this group are likely to have two
> display cards and two massive displays, but if you do (regardless of
> platform), I'd be interested to hear if you've experienced similar
> issues.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Joe Gurman
I read today in the Apple x11-users newsgroup that the recent Software
Update for X11, the one that fixes the PPC-binary X11 clients, also fixes
this problem with windows spanning displays.
I didn't try it (yet) myself, but it may be worth looking into.
Karl
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #51320 is a reply to message #51213] |
Tue, 14 November 2006 02:09 |
Karsten Rodenacker
Messages: 98
Registered: July 1997
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Member |
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Am Tue, 07 Nov 2006 01:41:14 +0100 schrieb Karl Schultz
<k_remove_schultz@ittvis.com>:
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:03:26 -0400, Joseph B. Gurman wrote:
>
>> This one is currently stumping the ITTvis support folks, so I
>> thought I'd see if anyone else had stumbled upon it.
>>
>> We're using a PowerMac G5 Quad with an NVIDIA Quadro 4500 (2 x
>> DualLink DVI) video card to drive two Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Displays
>> (2560 x 1600 LCD), plus an NVIDIA GeForce 6600 to run a smaller flat
>> panel (1280 x 1024 native res. LCD). The two large displays, which will
>> be mounted on a hallway wall, are meant to display time-lapse movies
>> from the imaging instruments (which have 2048 x 2048 detectors) on the
>> twin STEREO spacecraft, due for launch next week; the smaller display
>> is for control (e.g. a Terminal window to run IDL).
>>
>> When we use the old PowerLan eXodus X11 implementation, we can get
>> a single, large, X11 window that spans the two large displays.
>> Animation, however, is slow, so we turned to Apple's X11, which for
>> some reason responds to an IDL request of the form:
>>
>> IDL> window, 0, xsize = 4400, ysize = 1500
>>
>> with a considerably smaller window (~ 1200 x 960), on one of the large
>> displays. Curiously, the small window can be expanded by dragging on
>> the control tab at the lower right corner, but not beyond the
>> boundaries of that single display.
>>
>> xdpyinfo indicates that our X11 setup does include Xinerama
>> (screen-spanning) support, so my suspicion now focuses on X11 limiting
>> itself to the size of the small display despite putting the window on
>> one of the large displays. I may remove the GeForce and see if a
>> single-card, two-display configuration behaves differently.
>>
>> I realize not many folks on this group are likely to have two
>> display cards and two massive displays, but if you do (regardless of
>> platform), I'd be interested to hear if you've experienced similar
>> issues.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Joe Gurman
>
> I read today in the Apple x11-users newsgroup that the recent Software
> Update for X11, the one that fixes the PPC-binary X11 clients, also fixes
> this problem with windows spanning displays.
>
> I didn't try it (yet) myself, but it may be worth looking into.
OK, what I tried in my previous mail works now as expected.
MacOSX Version X11 1.1.3 - XFree86 4.4.0 which replaces just today the
1.1.2 version.
Karsten
--
Erstellt mit Operas revolutionï¿œrem E-Mail-Modul: http://www.opera.com/m2/
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #51428 is a reply to message #50816] |
Sat, 18 November 2006 17:14 |
Jeff Hester
Messages: 21
Registered: December 2001
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Junior Member |
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David Fanning wrote:
> Jeff Hester writes:
>
>
>> I'm kind of afraid of taking the hardware out of the box because I know
>> that when I do, I'm going to get sucked into issues like this for a month.
>
>
> I wondered what all these long (and interesting) articles
> were about. :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
Well, I bought the MacBook first to get my feet wet, only to find myself
dripping from head to toe. ;-)
To be truthful, I'm starting to like the environment, but am a LONG way
from feeling at home. Although I am already far happier on my MacBook
than I ever was with a Windoze laptop.
Anyone know of a piano teacher who can help me get all those time-saving
keystrokes into muscle memory...
Cheers,
Jeff
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #51431 is a reply to message #50816] |
Sat, 18 November 2006 16:55 |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Jeff Hester writes:
> I'm kind of afraid of taking the hardware out of the box because I know
> that when I do, I'm going to get sucked into issues like this for a month.
I wondered what all these long (and interesting) articles
were about. :-)
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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| Re: Issue with 6.3, Mac OS X 10.4, 3 displays, X11 [message #51432 is a reply to message #50877] |
Sat, 18 November 2006 16:45 |
Jeff Hester
Messages: 21
Registered: December 2001
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Junior Member |
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Rick Towler wrote:
> I'm sure this has crossed your mind, and I only mention this as you seem
> to have a deadline that Apple might not be able to meet, but have you
> considered running a linux based PC instead of your PowerMac? Or <gasp>
> a windows PC? Your graphics adapters should work in an x86 box and my
> multi-monitor experience on these platforms has been pretty positive.
>
A similar issue exists in the Linux world. Older WMs like twm and
sawfish allow creation of windows that are larger than the display.
Unfortunately these are no longer supported. The "native" window
manager in Fedora, MetaCity, will allow you to manually adjust a window
to whatever size you like, and manages those windows just fine, but will
not allow you to CREATE a window that does not fit on the screen. This
is a large pain in your southern extremities when you are working with
4000 x 4000 images and have a few tens of thousands of lines of code
built around the assumption that when you open a window with a specified
xsize and ysize, you GET a window with that xsize and ysize. (This
seems to be part of a general move in the Linux world away from the sort
of flexibility that prevents off-the-street users from being happy.)
A very sharp student of mine tried to hack MetaCity, but threw up his
hands in the maze of conditionals inside the code. And when he asked
one of the developers about it, the answer was a very predictable, "Open
windows larger than the screen? You aren't supposed to want to do that.
What kind of an idiot are you, anyway?"
I'd be interested in hearing the outcome of peoples' experience with
window managers and multiple displays in OS X. As of a day ago I have a
PowerMAC, a 20 inch display, and a 30 inch display sitting in my lab. I
would be perfectly happy if I could run X11 full screen on the 30 inch
display with some reasonable window manager (reasonable = let's me
create absurdly large windows), while running aqua in the 20 inch display.
I'm kind of afraid of taking the hardware out of the box because I know
that when I do, I'm going to get sucked into issues like this for a month.
Cheers,
Jeff
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