Slim & Multi-monitor

Slim & Multi-monitor

[Brett Gilio]

Hi all,

I have a dual monitor setup for my workstation I use Guix on. The Slim
DM is quite nice for me, and i'd theoretically like to remain with
it. However, I am having trouble with the way Slim is treating the
dual-monitor display. Instead of treating each monitor as their own
"workspace", it is treating both monitors together as a single extended
display, which creates an awkward division down the middle of Slim, and
displays part of the login field on each monitor display.

I checked the documentation for Slim to see if this is written on, and I
did not find anything.

Best,
Brett

Re: Slim & Multi-monitor

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Same issue here, but I'm not sure SLiM supports multi-monitor at all.  I'd be
happy to hear otherwise :D

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: Slim & Multi-monitor

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

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Hi,

Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> writes:

> I have a dual monitor setup for my workstation I use Guix on. The Slim
> DM is quite nice for me, and i'd theoretically like to remain with
> it. However, I am having trouble with the way Slim is treating the
> dual-monitor display.

I never tried a dual monitor (dual head) setup "since display manager"
[1] so I'm just reflecting here

have you configured xorg for dual head?

Archlinux wiki have a simple example:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multihead#Configuration_using_xorg.conf

I think you should adapt it to your needs ("xrandr -q" to show each monitor
ID) and use an extra-config in GuixSD xorg-configuration-file as shown
in this example (raplace bepo-evdev with your dual monitor section
definition):

 https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/X-Window.html#index-xorg_002dconfiguration_002dfile

[...]

> I checked the documentation for Slim to see if this is written on, and I
> did not find anything.

I don't know if SliM can start a custom display setup script, I found
this gist for Lightdm:

  https://gist.github.com/ciarand/8592193

maybe it could be adapted for SliM

anyway, using the xorg configuration explained above should be better

Ciao
Giovanni


[1] I just used dual head on laptop via xrandr commands, after "sigle
headed" display manager

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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Re: Slim & Multi-monitor

[Chris Marusich]

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Hi Brett!

Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> writes:

> I have a dual monitor setup for my workstation I use Guix on. The Slim
> DM is quite nice for me, and i'd theoretically like to remain with
> it. However, I am having trouble with the way Slim is treating the
> dual-monitor display. Instead of treating each monitor as their own
> "workspace", it is treating both monitors together as a single extended
> display, which creates an awkward division down the middle of Slim, and
> displays part of the login field on each monitor display.
>
> I checked the documentation for Slim to see if this is written on, and I
> did not find anything.

I can confirm that this happens for me, also.  I wasn't sure if it was a
bug or not, so I didn't comment on it, but it certainly seems incorrect.
Since this affects multiple people using GuixSD, perhaps we should file
a bug report about it.  Could you do that by emailing bug-guix@gnu.org?

Giovanni Biscuolo recommended some possible avenues for investigation.
Did you discover any more information about this issue?

-- 
Chris

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Re: Slim & Multi-monitor

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Chris,

> Brett Gilio <brettg@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> I have a dual monitor setup for my workstation I use Guix on. The Slim
>> DM is quite nice for me, and i'd theoretically like to remain with
>> it. However, I am having trouble with the way Slim is treating the
>> dual-monitor display. Instead of treating each monitor as their own
>> "workspace", it is treating both monitors together as a single extended
>> display, which creates an awkward division down the middle of Slim, and
>> displays part of the login field on each monitor display.
>>
>> I checked the documentation for Slim to see if this is written on, and I
>> did not find anything.
>
> I can confirm that this happens for me, also.  I wasn't sure if it was a
> bug or not, so I didn't comment on it, but it certainly seems incorrect.
> Since this affects multiple people using GuixSD, perhaps we should file
> a bug report about it.  Could you do that by emailing bug-guix@gnu.org?

I don’t think Slim supports multiple monitors, so there’s little we can
do without forking it.

Slim also has a couple of other drawbacks (such as no support for input
methods and lack of localisation).  We should change the default to a
different display manager such as gdm or lightdm.

--
Ricardo