Running multiple X sessions with Karmic
I have recently bought a new computer and installed Karmic on it. Within 10 minutes after the install I was faced with the burning question: "wtf did they do to GDM?!".
It looks like GDM was rewritten to take advantage of xsplash, Ubuntu's new X based boot, while losing every single useful configuration option. The reason this is important to me (aside from the annoyance of not being able to change the GDM theme), is b/c I used to run 2 GDM managed X sessions when I was running Ibex. One X session was using xorg.conf, configured for my dual monitor setup, and the other X session using xorg.conf.projector, configured to use a monitor and a projector. This way I was able to easily switch between the two modes by simply pressing Alt-F9/F7 keys.
Now that GDM can no longer manage multiple X sessions, I need to find a new way to do this. I realize that my approach of messing around with xorg.conf files might be outdated. I come from Slackware background, so I am usually much more likely to mess with config files rather than figure out GUI tools. This brings me to my question. Can anyone suggest some other ways to achieve similar functionality?
It is not that important that both X sessions are running all the time, which means that a solution which simply starts another X session with specific graphics configuration might be preferable.
So far I tried the following:
This looked like the perfect solution at first, but then I noticed that the computer would freeze (just input devices and graphics) all too often when switching between the X sessions. I haven't tried it w/o GDM yet.
So, can anyone recommend a different approach? btw, I am using proprietary NVIDIA drivers. Maybe there is something in NVIDIA tools that can help me?
Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.
It looks like GDM was rewritten to take advantage of xsplash, Ubuntu's new X based boot, while losing every single useful configuration option. The reason this is important to me (aside from the annoyance of not being able to change the GDM theme), is b/c I used to run 2 GDM managed X sessions when I was running Ibex. One X session was using xorg.conf, configured for my dual monitor setup, and the other X session using xorg.conf.projector, configured to use a monitor and a projector. This way I was able to easily switch between the two modes by simply pressing Alt-F9/F7 keys.
Now that GDM can no longer manage multiple X sessions, I need to find a new way to do this. I realize that my approach of messing around with xorg.conf files might be outdated. I come from Slackware background, so I am usually much more likely to mess with config files rather than figure out GUI tools. This brings me to my question. Can anyone suggest some other ways to achieve similar functionality?
It is not that important that both X sessions are running all the time, which means that a solution which simply starts another X session with specific graphics configuration might be preferable.
So far I tried the following:
HIGHEST_USED_DISPLAY=`ls -al /tmp/.X* | tail -1 | awk -F 'X' '{print $2}'`
let AVAILABLE_DISPLAY=($HIGHEST_USED_DISPLAY+1)
su - valprj -c "startx -- :$AVAILABLE_DISPLAY -config xorg.conf.projector"
This looked like the perfect solution at first, but then I noticed that the computer would freeze (just input devices and graphics) all too often when switching between the X sessions. I haven't tried it w/o GDM yet.
So, can anyone recommend a different approach? btw, I am using proprietary NVIDIA drivers. Maybe there is something in NVIDIA tools that can help me?
Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.
