[kde-linux] Re: KDE 4.6.3 update messed up my TwinView setup?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 8:09 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:
> Mark Knecht posted on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:47:05 -0700 as excerpted:
>
>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:
>>> Mark Knecht posted on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 06:47:37 -0700 as excerpted:
>>>
>>>> I've been using NVidia's TwinView where my two 1920x1080 monitors are
>>>> treated like one large 3940x1080 screen. This worked fine in 4.6.2 but
>>>> with the Gentoo update yesterday to 4.6.3 it's now treating the two
>>>> monitors like separate 1920x1080 screens.
>>>>
>>>> I'm looking but haven't found it yet. Is there a setting somewhere
>>>> that allows me to set it back the way it was? The
>>>> SystemSettings->Display&Monitor tab shows it's supposed to be a single
>>>> 3940x1080 monitor, so it appears to be more of a desktop issue than
>>>> purely a display issue.
>>>
>>> Try... kcontrol[,] hardware, display and monitor, multiple monitors.
>>> FWIW I believe you'll need USE=xinerama to get that kcontrol module.
>>>
>> For clarity, you're suggesting I add USE-xinerama to how I build my
>> machine? I'm happy to try it but it seems a rather radical step for a
>> minor KDE upgrade.
>>
>> OK, before I change USE flags Size & Orientation shows a single
>> monitor3840X1080 which is correct.
>>
>> Multiple Monitors has all 5 check boxes checked and shows :
>>
>> Display 1:0,0,1920,1080 Display2:1920,0,1920,1080
>>
>> The Identify all Displays gives me a '1' on the left monitor and a '2'
>> on the right monitor. My mouse stops at the left side of monitor 1 and
>> the right side of monitor 2. However I have two separate desktops with
>> different wallpaper and (frustratingly) all new windows seem to open on
>> the right monitor, not the left monitor even though it says to open
>> unmanaged windows on Monitor 1.
>>
>> Please clarify about the xinerama flag (I've never used it) and I'll
>> give it a try.
>
> In terms of the xinerama USE flag, equery hasuse xinerama tells me that
> kwin, plasma-workspace, and systemsettings (ksplash too, but I don't
> believe it's implicated here), are the kde-base packages that have the
> flag.  Oh, and qt-gui is of course a kde dependency and has the flag
> too.  There's some other non-kde-related packages too, but they're not
> apropos, here.  So it's not like changing it and running emerge --newuse
> will trigger a rebuild of all of kde.
>

Here's what is using xinerama on my system if it's enabled by a flag:

c2stable ~ # equery hasuse xinerama
[ Searching for USE flag xinerama in all categories among: ]
 * installed packages
[I--] [  ] kde-base/systemsettings-4.6.3 (4.6)
[I--] [  ] kde-base/kwin-4.6.3-r1 (4.6)
[I--] [  ] kde-base/ksplash-4.6.3 (4.6)
[I--] [  ] kde-base/plasma-workspace-4.6.3-r2 (4.6)
[I--] [  ] media-libs/libsdl-1.2.14-r6 (0)
[I--] [  ] media-libs/xine-lib-1.1.19 (1)
[I--] [  ] x11-apps/xdpyinfo-1.2.0 (0)
[I--] [  ] x11-libs/gtk+-2.22.1-r1 (2)
[I--] [  ] x11-libs/qt-gui-4.7.2 (4)
[I--] [  ] x11-misc/xscreensaver-5.12 (0)
[I--] [  ] media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20101114 (0)
[I--] [  ] media-video/xine-ui-0.99.6 (0)
c2stable ~ #

NOTE: I __ALWAYS__ use emerge -DuN @world for updates, probably 3-5
times a week. The machine is stable other than a few things I find I
need the ~amd64 flag for.

<SNIP>
>
> The nVidia proprietary drivers are as I believe are aware, a black-box I
> by policy won't have anything to do with, so to the degree that they're
> different and potentially making the situation more complex, as they may
> well be doing, you'll have to either work that end out yourself or find
> someone else to help with it.  However, if the layout is working as it
> should with a normal native randr enabled X/KMS driver...
>

While your POV on this subject is well known (at least to me) being
that the OS driver doesn't support CUDA it's not an option for me.
That said I don't expect support for the NVidia driver on this list.
WRT this issue, the NVidia driver wasn't updated, only KDE


> There are two separate pieces of kde that are affected by multi-monitor
> setups, plasma and kwin.  Both of these are still under quite active new-
> feature development and as a result are often buggy, particularly with
> multiple monitors as support for various multi-monitor features is only
> now coming online, and it's still not what one would exactly describe as
> stable, for sure.  If one takes the view that solid single-monitor
> support is a prerequisite to good multi-monitor functionality, then this
> is only natural, especially if one also takes the view, as I definitely
> do, that 4.5 was the first truly normal-people usable version, what
> SHOULD have been 4.0, and supposes that a .0 would bring single-monitor
> support to full stability, 4.6 is then comparable to a 4.1 beta (where
> multi-monitor stability might be considered a 4.1 feature), with previews
> and sometimes working versions of the new functionality there, but not
> really ready for prime-time.
>
> Anyway...
>
> The multiple-monitor kcm under discussion is the kwin multi-monitor
> configuration.  You mention having all five checkboxes checked.  But if
> you read the options, they enable multi-monitor support for various
> things, when your preference as posted is to have them treated as if they
> were a single BIG monitor.  Thus, it's likely that you really want some
> of these options UNCHECKED.  That's why I was pointing you at this kcm,
> since it controls much of kwin's behavior in this regard, but didn't
> specify a particular option, as once you're there, I figured you could
> decide for yourself which options you wanted checked and unchecked.
>

OK, the best I've gotten so far is that when nothing is checked I get
things like the logout dialog box or systemsettings spanning the two
monitors. That is what they did before this update, so that seems a
little closer. However if a 'Desktop' is defined by what I'm
controlling when I right click my mouse and choose 'Desktop Settings'
then it's interesting. The Plasma Desktop Shell appears spanning both
monitors, as if the desktop is both monitors ala TwinView. However
setting wallpaper to a 3840x1080 file gets scaled on only one monitor,
basically the monitor i was on when I did the right click. (NOTE: I
call this a 'bug' because the monitor says I'm working with a single
3840x1080 desktop but KDE sizes things like I have two 1920x1080
desktops.)

Also, the first indication of this change actually shows up before
logging in when kdm places the login prompt firmly in the middle of
the left monitor. (Whether logging out or completely rebooting) It
didn't do that before. This change makes me think that the root cause
of this problem has nothing to do with my specific user settings but
rather just changes and/or bugs in the new KDE release.

I don't see anything interesting if I rebuild it:

c2stable ~ # emerge -pv kdm

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R    ] kde-base/kdm-4.6.3-r1  USE="(consolekit) handbook pam
(-aqua) -debug (-kdeenablefinal) (-kdeprefix) -kerberos" 0 kB

Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 kB
c2stable ~ #

<SNIP>
>
> My reasonable guess, therefore, is that presently the only way to control
> plasma's multi-monitor behavior is with the xinerama USE flag.
>
> So here's what I believe that flag does:  For the systemsetting package
> (kcontrol more accurately), it probably enables building that kcm.  For
> kwin, it enables the features controlled by that kcm.  For plasma-
> workspace, it controls split vs. single unified layout, including both
> background and layout type.  (There's also ksplash but since that's only
> seen temporarily, it's not as important.)
>
> Now that it's on, simply unchecking the appropriate options in the multi-
> monitor kcm should get kwin back as you want it, but you'll probably have
> to rebuild plasma-workspace with USE=-xinerama to get it back to unified.
>
> So the minimal change necessary to get back to where you were is to set -
> xinerama for plasma-workspace in package.use and rebuild it, and uncheck
> the options in that kcm.  Restart kde after that, and you should be back
> where you were... I think.
>
> Alternatively, set -xinerama in make.conf or individually for all three
> packages, and do an emerge --newuse @world.  (Do note that if you don't
> routinely use --newuse, you might have a backlog of quite a few unrelated
> packages that want to rebuild as well.  The usual advice applies...
> Always use --ask or --pretend first to avoid unexpected and unwanted
> surprises, and preferably, either put --newuse in EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS or
> use it regularly, in addition to the routine emerge --depclean and revdep-
> rebuilds, thus helping to keep your Gentoo system free of nasty bug-
> triggering cruft.)
>

If I was to disable xinerama in make.conf here's what I'd trigger:

c2stable ~ # vi /etc/make.conf
c2stable ~ # emerge -pvDuN @world

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R    ] x11-apps/xdpyinfo-1.2.0  USE="-dga -dmx -xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] media-libs/libsdl-1.2.14-r6  USE="X alsa audio
joystick opengl video xv -aalib -custom-cflags -dga -directfb -fbcon
-ggi -libcaca -nas -oss (-ps3) -pulseaudio -static-libs (-svga) -tslib
-xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20101114  USE="X a52
alsa ass cddb cdio dirac dts dv dvd dvdnav enca encode faac faad gif
iconv jpeg jpeg2k live mad mmx mng mp3 network opengl osdmenu png
quicktime rar real rtc schroedinger sdl shm speex sse sse2 ssse3
theora toolame tremor truetype twolame unicode vdpau vorbis x264
xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc -3dnow -3dnowext -aalib (-altivec) -amr
(-aqua) -bidi -bindist -bl (-bluray) -bs2b -cdparanoia -cpudetection
-custom-cpuopts -debug -dga -directfb -doc -dvb -dxr3 -esd -fbcon -ftp
-ggi -gsm -ipv6 -jack -joystick -ladspa -libcaca -libmpeg2 -lirc -lzo
-md5sum -mmxext -mpg123 -nas -nut -openal -oss -pnm -pulseaudio -pvr
-radio -rtmp -samba -tga -v4l -v4l2 (-vidix) -vpx (-win32codecs)
-xanim -xinerama* -zoran" VIDEO_CARDS="vesa -mga -s3virge -tdfx" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] x11-libs/gtk+-2.22.1-r1  USE="jpeg jpeg2k tiff
(-aqua) -cups -debug -doc -examples (-introspection) -test -vim-syntax
-xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] media-libs/xine-lib-1.1.19  USE="X a52 aac alsa css
dts flac gtk mad mng modplug musepack nls opengl sdl theora truetype
v4l vorbis xcb xv xvmc -aalib (-altivec) -directfb -dxr3 -esd -fbcon
-gnome -imagemagick -ipv6 -jack -libcaca -mmap -oss -pulseaudio
(-real) -samba -speex -vcd (-vidix) (-vis) -wavpack (-win32codecs)
-xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] media-video/xine-ui-0.99.6  USE="X nls readline
-aalib -curl -debug -libcaca -lirc -vdr -xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] x11-misc/xscreensaver-5.12  USE="jpeg opengl pam
-new-login -suid -xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] x11-libs/qt-gui-4.7.2  USE="accessibility dbus
exceptions glib mng private-headers qt3support tiff (-aqua) -cups
-debug -egl -gtkstyle -nas -nis -pch -raster -trace -xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] kde-base/ksplash-4.6.3  USE="mmx sse sse2 -3dnow
(-altivec) (-aqua) -debug (-kdeenablefinal) (-kdeprefix) -xinerama*" 0
kB
[ebuild   R    ] kde-base/kwin-4.6.3-r1  USE="opengl xcomposite
(-aqua) -debug (-kdeenablefinal) (-kdeprefix) -xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] kde-base/plasma-workspace-4.6.3-r2  USE="handbook
python rss semantic-desktop (-aqua) -debug -google-gadgets -gps
(-kdeenablefinal) (-kdeprefix) -qalculate -xinerama*" 0 kB
[ebuild   R    ] kde-base/systemsettings-4.6.3  USE="gtk handbook
opengl usb (-aqua) -debug (-kdeenablefinal) (-kdeprefix) -xinerama*" 0
kB

Total: 12 packages (12 reinstalls), Size of downloads: 0 kB
c2stable ~ #

I may try that later today after the markets close.

Thanks,
Mark