All of a display??™s video cards and monitors can be combined to act like one giant
video monitor. This approach is called Xinerama (Section 4.9) as a tribute to the old
Cinerama multiprojector wide-screen movie format. Xinerama permits windows to
span monitors and works especially well on multipanel LCD displays, video walls, or
video projectors.
Alternately, a display??™s video cards and monitors may be configured as separate
screens. Each screen is individually addressable, so windows can be directed to display
on a specific screen. It is not possible to move windows between screens nor to
have windows span screens, but the mouse pointer can be moved between screens.
The use of screens predates Xinerama, but it is still useful for some dual-monitor
applications, such as presentations where one monitor is used for control and setup
and the second monitor displays live output to the audience. By using a two-screen
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20 Chapter 1: Introduction to the X Window System
configuration instead of Xinerama, windows from the control screen will be prevented
from straying onto the publicly-visible display.
Some window managers, such as the LessTif version of the Motif Window Manager
MWM, are not capable of managing multiple screens and will only register themselves
as the window manager for one screen.
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