[kde-linux] KDE - What is 'Meta'?

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Wed, 08 May 2013 08:51:05 -0700 as excerpted:

> On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:04 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> OK, found meta-ctrl-F1 and meta-ctrl-F2 were free, and assigned them
>> under kcontrol, common appearance and behavior, shortcuts and gestures,
>> global keyboard shortcuts, kde component kwin (dropdown), window to
>> screen 0 and window to screen 1, respectively.
>>
>> It works as expected.  Hitting those keys now moves the active window
>> to the appropriate xinerama/randr screen. =:^)
>>
> Yes, that's working for me also. I am now suspicious that previously I
> might have set the 'Switch to Screen 0/1/2' instead of 'Window to Screen
> 0/1/2' setting as the setting you call out now is working and I don't
> remember working at the bottom of the list earlier. Anyway, it works.
> Thanks.

I was wondering if you had set switch to screen instead of window to 
screen, as when I was looking it up I saw the "switch..." first and /
almost/ got fooled by that myself, but then I saw the switch to desktop 
functions along with the accels I'd set for them and realized it wasn't 
what I (you) was (were) after.

But I decided I'd test it to be sure, and sure enough it worked for me.  
However, /again/ I almost got fooled by the switch-to functions when 
setting it up myself, which is why I specifically stated the path 
including the window-to bit when I reported my success, hoping you'd 
catch that, which you did. =:^)

>> (FWIW, I'm considering installing a third monitor, smaller but the same
>> [full-HD 1920x1080] resolution as my other two, as my system status
>> display.  That'd get it off my top monitor, giving me two full-screen
>> [42-inch] displays for work, instead of using the top 170 pixels of
>> the top one for system status.  The third monitor is one of the 21"
>> monitors I was using before I upgraded to the 42-inch monitors, and
>> AFAIK, all I need to do it is a display-port-to-DVI cable, since the
>> third output on my graphics card is display-port, and the monitor is
>> DVI.  But that's not too expensive.  And I already have the monitor and
>> wall-mounting hardware for it.[...])
> 
> 
> Be careful about port assumptions. As you run Radeon (I think) it could
> certainly be different but my 3 port NVidia cards really only support 2
> monitors. If I was to use the Display port I'd lose one of the DVI.

It *IS* different, as I have it (partially, test/temporary) setup that 
way now.  Confirmed, all three work.

Now I just have to permanently mount the hardware, and reconfigure plasma 
and superkaramba and all my kwin hard-positioning rules... which will 
take some time and patience, but shouldn't be too terrible.

> For me to get to 3 monitors here I had to install a second card (also
> NVidia) which has unfortunately limited my options WRT OpenGL, etc. None
> of the KDE features that do things like show all 6 Desktops work on my
> server which has 3 monitors split across 2 cards. There's a bunch of
> info on the web about how this is a known limitation, etc., so I haven't
> fought it at all. Apps like xine work perfectly on Screens 1 & 2 but
> display a black box on Screen 3.

Yes.  I'm familiar with those limitations from years ago, when I used to 
run three monitors on two different cards myself.  But as screen sizes 
increased, eventually I decided two was sufficient, since the tradeoff 
was OpenGL across both.

But now I have three outputs on the one card again, and I still had the 
old 21-inch monitors after my upgrade to 42-inchers, so I thought I'd try 
it and see.  Sure enough, it works. =:^)

Meanwhile, I /think/ the native kernel/mesa/xorg radeon drivers along 
with the graphics-arbitrator option (which I have off as I have only one 
card anyway) are now able to handle multiple cards with full OpenGL as 
well, at least if they are compatible drivers.  However, I've not tried 
it, and with three independent outputs per card and today's full-HD or 
better resolution per monitor, with monitor/TV sizes as large as you care 
to go, I doubt I'll have good reason to any time soon.

> (Audio still available.) Still, I do
> most multimedia on Screen 3 using a Windows XP VM in VMWare running
> NetFLix/Hulu, etc. Note that the most recent versions of Virtualbox
> don't seem to work for this feature saying they cannot lock the screen
> or some other such DRM-ish message.
> 
> So far, if I was insistent about getting OpenGL working on 3 monitors,
> and based on my current skill set, I'd go look for a new VGA card that
> supported 4 monitors as it allows the whole OpenGL graphics space to be
> in the memory on one card. I believe I read that works fine, as it does
> on 2 monitor cards.

Yes, /that/ seems to work well, at least on current "best-FLOSS-support" 
radeons, the hd-6xxx series, aka northern-islands.

What's nice is that unless you're a demanding 3D gamer and need the 
newest hardware and want servantware drivers, the radeon FLOSS drivers 
work best on a generation back, which ends up being a very nice price-
point, while not being so old the cards are hard to find and at a premium 
again (as was the case the last time or two I upgraded my old AGP system 
upgraded to dual-dual-cores with 8 gig RAM so it wasn't /too/ outdated 
compute-power-wise, just bus-wise, before the mobo died with bulging/
leaked caps a bit after the 8-year point).

$100 buys a very nice mid-line radeon northern-islands "turks" hd6670 
with a gig onboard RAM and three independent outputs.  Actually, perhaps 
a bit more, now, as that was about a year ago.

> On the other hand, and from a COMPLETELY selfish point of view, if you
> want to get a second VGA card and pound these OpenGL problems into
> submission I'll GLADLY follow along in awe as you fix my problems also!
> ;-)

Well, you know what to get and what drivers to use for 3-output single-
card, anyway. =:^)

FWIW, the outputs on mine are one each, HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort.  The 
two new monitors actually being 42-inch TVs, cheaper end ($400 each) for 
LED-based, so only HDMI input, so to them I'm running one HDMI-HDMI, and 
one DVI-HDMI, which was running from the HDMI out on the old card to the 
DVI in on the old monitor, but is now "reversed", DVI out on the new card 
to HDMI in on one of the TV/monitors.  The old monitor is DVI and the 
unused output on the card was DisplayPort, so I got a DisplayPort/DVI 
adapter that I could plug one of the old DVI-DVI cables into.

So if you go that way, do be aware of the inputs and outputs you're going 
to be running and what cables or adaptors you may need to do it.

FWIW, DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI are all three electronic signal 
compatible, so a passive adapter is fine.  My old netbook, however, only 
had VGA out, which is of course analog, so to plug it into the (digital-
only) HDMI on the new TV/monitor, I had to buy an active adapter, a bit 
more money.

But I like that old netbook and I actually just bought an SSD to replace 
the hard drive with (the netbook's only SATA-2, but the SSD is SATA-3, so 
when I do upgrade I can take it out of the old netbook and plug it 
directly into whatever new I get, for full speed SATA-3), so the active 
VGA/HDMI adapter was worth it.  And I can keep updating it from the 32-
bit build-chroot on my main machine, and I topped it off to 1.5 gig RAM 
as soon as I got it, so with the SSD, the old single-core hyperthreaded 
1.6 GHz atom n270 CPU (IIRC, the first atom Intel sold, in any case) 
should be fine for runtime use for some time yet.  So getting the active 
adapter was worth it. =:^)

Meanwhile, in addition to the DisplayPort/HDMI adapter, I got three SSDs, 
one for the netbook (as mentioned), two for the main machine, all 
upgrades from "spinning rust" (tho I'll keep the spinning rust for a 
media drive on the main machine), so I have my work cut out for me doing 
the upgrades and reconfigures over the next few days...

New toys to play with are always fun! =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman