[bjames]

Can I add a SI board to a EMXI (mxe) configuration to run dual monitors?  Or does the second gfx card need to be SE card?

[bjames]

I might have found the answer. I found a website that has sgi technical document on connecting cad dual and due all head to octane. Under the connecting the monitor section is says quote:

“Connecting Monitor Cables to the Workstation in an OCTANE/SSI or /SSE/SI or /SE, or OCTANE/MXI or /MXE/SI or /SE Configuration”

I interpret this as having a MXE board and SI combo is ok. The octane I have originally came with this combo installed, but it didn’t come with t hard drive and did not boot... essentially I rescued it and restored everything including taking out the SI board. But I think I will reinstall it and give it a try.

What do I have to loose. If I blow up my octane, it’s pretty easy to find a replacement. LOL

[Jacques]

Should be fine, watch out for the compression connectors

[bjames]

So I connected the SI along with the MXE using the bottom right slot and everything works perfectly.

The only challenge I am having is HOW can I drag my user folder to the other screen. It’s apparent that sgi treats dual monitors as separate display environments and not a “expand desktop” like intels do. Each monitor has its own tool chest, so I figured out to open applications on the 2nd display, you have to open it from the tool chest on that display. You cannot drag a window or application from one monitor to the other.

My question is how can I make a folder shortcut on the 2nd display pointed to my home directly?

[radiance]

Hey,

The problem is that you now have 2 X servers running, one on the first "localhost:0.0" display adapter and the second "localhost:0.1" on your second adapter.
If you want to launch apps on specific desktops, set your DISPLAY variable in your environment accordingly before launching them.
This is not what you were looking for right You want to be able to drag windows across desktops

You need to enable the xinerama extension on your X server
Just run this command: chkconfig xinerama on
And then reboot your machine.

You now have one desktop that spans your 2 displays and you can drag windows accross and even span them accross desktops. If you're running 1280x1024 resolution on both displays for example, your desktop is 2560x1024 pixels resolution.
You only have one DISPLAY now as "localhost:0.0" so you have to use -p or -geometry options on X apps that support them to place a window on the required part of your display.

There is one big issue though, this works for X applications, but you still have 2 different OpenGL pipelines.
If you start an application that uses OpenGL, it will only work on one display (probably the left one if that's where it started)
If you drag or span it to the 2nd display, it will remain black.

Since the desktop icons are OpenGL based, they won't work on the 2nd display neither for the same reason. (except when xinerama is on and they are downgraded to software rendering without AA)

To fix this issue you need to install SGI's MultiPipe software, which will do what xinerama does but for OpenGL.
I haven't done this as my dual head system is an Indigo2,m which is not supported by multipipe, but I think the Octane is.
Google for the SGI multipipe installation PDF manual for details...

Cheers,
Radiance

[bjames]

Awesome.. thanks Radiance