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If I plug an external CRT to my laptop, it normally either displays the same picture as the laptop's panel, or extends the desktop area. But I'd like it to be a separate virtual desktop (a workspace, in terms of Gnome). Is it possible?

I use Toshiba L10 laptop with Intel 82852/855GM onboard card. And I switch (which, AFAIK, can be an inconvenience with Xinerama) monitor configurations (detach all monitors but a laptop's built-in panel, attach monitors with different resolutions) pretty often (sometimes many times a day).

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What kind of videocard are you using? With an nVidia card I would recommend using twinview. Otherwise it should be possible to simply enable xinerama for it to work.

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  • I use Intel 82852/855GM. And I switch (which, AFAIK, can be an inconvenience with Cinerama) monitor configurations (detach all monitors but a laptop's built-in panel, attach monitors with different resolutions) pretty often (sometimes many times a day).
    – Ivan
    Oct 3, 2010 at 2:29
  • @Ivan: you're right, xinerama sometimes get confused when changing monitor sizes dynamically (on my laptop with nvidia drivers I am sometimes required to restart X to make it work properly). If you have all the resolutions you commonly use preconfigured in your xorg config than it usually works fairly well with intel though. Or atleast... the last time I tried (admittedly, 2-3 years ago) it worked nicely.
    – Wolph
    Oct 3, 2010 at 2:51
  • Would you be so kind to take a look and share your experience at this question then: ubuntu.stackexchange.com/questions/5138/…
    – Ivan
    Oct 3, 2010 at 20:51
  • I've enabled Xinerama the way yo wrote, but the situation has not changes. Both displays are still merged into one big workspace instead of 2 separate. There are minor signs of that something has changed, but no practical difference. Any further ideas?
    – Ivan
    Oct 4, 2010 at 23:19
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    One screen with ability to maximise per screen - that was what I already had without Xinerama. I want 2 separate screens with separate taskbars. I don't need to drag things between them directly, right-clicking on a window and selecting "move to workspace right" to move to another screen is what I want. I want "workspace switcher" panel applet to show my screens as 2 separate workspaces.
    – Ivan
    Oct 5, 2010 at 10:21

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