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I know this question has been asked before in the last 5 years or so, but my situation seems to be different.

I recently aquired a new monitor for my laptop and I'd like to view a separate workspace on each monitor. I managed to have an extended workspace, but I had to replicate the panels and this seems to create a few problems, particularly with the clock and the notification area and I have a few other reasons to prefer separate workspaces instead of the extended workspace. A few informations about the setup:

  • OS: Ubuntu MATE 15.04
  • Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
  • Graphics card driver: nvidia-304 (NVIDIA Legacy Binary Driver) Changed to nvidia-346 (NVIDIA Binary Driver) - no improvement.
  • Laptop: Acer Aspire TimelineX 4830T

Seeing previous questions, I have to add that I installed Bumblebee to reduce battery consumption and heat production and a change in this direction is acceptable only if it achieves the same results, i.e. switching off the graphics card for most of the time. There is a list of different drivers, in particular nvidia-346 is recommended, but I must admit I never dared to change it, because until now the current driver worked perfectly.

I couldn't find this question answered for my particular case (MATE+Bumblebee), only a few old questions (~2011) that say it's not possible. Did it became achievable? And if yes, how?

Thanks for the answer and for your time.

Edit: I also tried to upgrade the driver to nvidia-346, but nothing changed. I noticed nvidia-settings is almost completely empty.

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1 Answer 1

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Easy. All you have to do is to run Displays in the MATE menu. Then choose expand desktop.

Then, according to this link, all you have to do is:

Right-click the panel you wish to move and select “Properties”.

Uncheck the “Expand” option under the “General” tab.

Grab one of the edges of the panel by clicking on the left or right end (top or bottom end for vertical panels)

Drag the bar to the desired screen and position

Check the “Expand” option in the “Panel Properties” window and click “Close”.

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5
  • Thanks for the answer, but I'm not interested in creating new panels. I already found that page, followed the instructions and duplicated every widget on screen (menu, clock, ...), but I find the result is not satisfying. I can't see the files on desktop on both screens, I see the notification area on the right screen and notification bubbles on the left one, the clocks don't seem to go very well together, by default every program is showed on the left screen and so on. I'd like to have two separate workspaces, one for each monitor, not the same workspace extended on both monitors.
    – GRB
    Jul 29, 2015 at 13:13
  • @MFH What about this: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/80774/… and this ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/63509/dual-monitor-workspaces
    – diamondburned
    Jul 29, 2015 at 13:33
  • The first one is for Cinnamon desktop environment and the answer says that there is no such feature for MATE, but the answer is 2 years old, I hope in this time some new possibilities appear. The second link explains what I already did: one workspace extended over two monitors. As I said I already did an extensive research on the topic and couldn't find any ready solution for my setup on the internet.
    – GRB
    Jul 29, 2015 at 13:45
  • Any work around for Unity desktop?
    – Deepen
    Apr 6, 2016 at 4:14
  • Sorry to say the link in your answer is broken.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Feb 9, 2018 at 11:50

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