Tweet
This is a call to arms for those running KDE 4.x or KDE 3.5.x (or other WM!) on Linux / Unix and want to see multi-display working (finally) on KDE4. See the relevant (sticky) forum thread and bug links below:
Anyone here running KDE4 and has multiple Displays should be aware of this issue and is likely dealing with it in a very hacky and painful way.
First, to clear up any misconceptions :
Terminology
Who this bug affects
Why this has not been fixed
I have heard numerous reasons for why this glaring bug/regression has not been fixed, but from my observations they all boil down to the following:
What needs to happen
Anyone capable needs to help us find a solution to the above problems. If developers need hardware, we need to find out how to get it to them. If developers need test cases, we need to give it to them. If the bug is closed, we need to get them reopened or open new bugs. I've been waiting since 4.0, hoping the next release would fix this problem, and disappointed every release since. Obviously hoping isn't enough, and I'm ready to put down time and cash to get this resolved. Anyone else with me on this?
Anyone here running KDE4 and has multiple Displays should be aware of this issue and is likely dealing with it in a very hacky and painful way.
First, to clear up any misconceptions :
Terminology
- Display : An X11 display, denoted by :0.0 , :0.1, etc...
- Screen : A physical screen consisting of an output from a GPU/Video Card or nested X session.
- TwinView/Xinerama : A Single X11 Display using multiple screens on a merged framebuffer.
- Multihead / Multi Display : Multiple X11 Displays using one or more Screens.
Who this bug affects
- Anyone using more than one Display in KDE4, from earliest 4.0 beta to (currently) 4.5.1
- Does NOT affect those using TwinView / Xinerama
Why this has not been fixed
I have heard numerous reasons for why this glaring bug/regression has not been fixed, but from my observations they all boil down to the following:
- The required developers do not have the hardware required to test this issue
Anyone with more than one monitor has the resources available to reproduce this problem, so I am highly skeptical on this. All of the core devs only have a single Screen? So why does multimonitor support exist in Plasma and KWin for the nonstandard configs (TwinView/Xinerama)? Even if this is so, that is unfortunate, and is something I personally have offered to rectify(link). - There are (hacky!) workarounds available
None of which involve KDE4 software at all, so essentially there are no workarounds. None. - The bug for this (link) is marked as FIXED / RESOLVED!
This one really gets me. Why is this even marked as fixed? - Noone tests patches made by developers for this issue
Another false. I and several others have expressed willingness to test patches and file relevant bugs.
What needs to happen
Anyone capable needs to help us find a solution to the above problems. If developers need hardware, we need to find out how to get it to them. If developers need test cases, we need to give it to them. If the bug is closed, we need to get them reopened or open new bugs. I've been waiting since 4.0, hoping the next release would fix this problem, and disappointed every release since. Obviously hoping isn't enough, and I'm ready to put down time and cash to get this resolved. Anyone else with me on this?
Comment