I'm just trying to use GUI, and not console so not sure where I'd put those export parameters. I want my primary monitor to be the centre one not the most left. (3 monitor setup)

I've been thinking of just going with a single 4k monitor to save all the trouble though.

Some applications take the display parameter and some can be prefaced with DISPLAY=:0.1, or whatever, in their menu item (for example) to get them to run on one screen or the other. It's not particularly useful day-to-day things as menus tend to share entries, for example, but it can be useful for certain things. Also things like conky can be told to use (in my case) display 0.1 and if I feel like it I can run another instance of conky in the other screen and open another on screen 0.0.
I've pretty much given up trying to get things perfect and live with XFCE being "good enough". I have tried the other options for screen configuration but they either tended to end up with full-screen applications trying to cover both or only being able to use OpenGL on one screen. Whether that's been solved with the other options or not I've not bothered to test as I've got used to my setup.

I don't really have to want to do that for every time I want to open an app, I just want the app to open on whatever screen it was launched from.

Given there does not seem to be any solution I might try to dive into the code that determines this and customize something. I imagine there must be a way to get the x/y coord of the mouse somewhere along the code that draws a window, then just need to use those x/y coords to determine where the window is drawn. Hopefully in that context there is also a way to determine the different screen boundaries as to ensure a window opens fully on one screen - the one with the cursor. Guess it would make an interesting learning project as I've never really touched any Linux code before.

Perhaps I'm giving too much information at once.
XFCE "just works" for me without any issues apart from only being able to have my web browsers open in one monitor at a time and any applications only being able to use one monitor or the other.
My applications open in the monitor I launch them from apart from some oddness with notifications and some other case I don't recall.

For forcing opening applications in specific monitors, for troublesome applications perhaps, it is usually possible to create a shortcut on the task bar or desktop to open that application on a monitor of choice. Obviously the easiest use for this is a panel or desktop shortcut that launches the application on that monitor for sure but other things are of course possible.

Firefox (and I think Chrom[e|ium]) can be opened on more than one monitor but they need a separate shortcut for each as each will need a separate profile.

To re-iterate -- I find XFCE works virtually out of the box then there are some tricks that can be used for more tricky stuff.

Ohh I see so with XFCE and separate X session it works properly without having to do anything? I suppose it may be worth installing the XFCE version of Mint (and upgrade to latest same time) and try that.

I completely agree:- Has multi-monitors always been difficult to work with 273?

That makes sense.-

-::-Let us know Red Squirrel if XFCE works for you:-:-

I won't have time to do a reload for a while (I'm currently on KDE version), but I will definitely try it. If XFCE + multi X sessions works out, then I'll go with that.

Though if I can figure out why my Raspberry PI setup with Synergy is so unstable or write some kind of watch dog script that automatically resets when it fails, I might end up just sticking with that for now.

Yes and no. I'm only referring to NVIDIA here others would have to answer for other systems. I did used to be able to use KDE and Gnome with two X sessions and get on OK but that was a couple of versions of each ago. The other NVIDIA settings have also worked for some things but not others in the past.

I think it is also possible to get things running using xrandr which may work better but I've not had a problem worth spending the time messing with it.

Thanks for the details.

I wonder if there is a way to get some improvements made on this front, perhaps it's just the thing of knowing who in the development team to contact. Of course it would require enough people to make a common suggestion and show that it is needed.

Personally what I'd like to see is a normal extended desktop setup, but where applications are forced to launch where they were launched from, and any sub windows generated by an application always launch over that application. I'm sure this would not be that hard to do, and make it consistent and work 100% of the time no matter what the application is.

To be fair though, Linux is still better than Windows in this regard, I find Windows is extremely terrible at it. For example trying to do a search in Excel and the search box ends up 3 monitors down instead of over the spreadsheet you're working on. But it's still not perfect in Linux.

Kendall Weaver is the man that maintains Linux Mint LXDE Edition. Clement Lefebvre is the project leader and makes all of the decisions. Maybe write to them or write to Canonical.

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/sof...x-mint-1017219
http://www.canonical.com/

List of the Management Team at Canonical-
http://www.canonical.com/about

I was playing around with XFCE but noticed the file manager has no search AT ALL! Is this really for real? Or maybe it's a component I'm missing because I installed it on my existing KDE system and it's not a full XFCE install version. I would not be able to function without a search feature in the file manager, I use that all the time when coding as it's a quick way to pull up source files in projects that may have 10's if 100's of thousands of files.

I did not try further after I discovered that as it is definitely a show stopper. Honestly I have not worked on any projects in over a year because I just can't seem to figure out a proper work environment because of multi monitor being so poorly implemented in all OSes. This raspberry PI thing with synergy is not working out, Synergy and the browser is constantly crashing and I'm constantly having to reset it. Tried to install latest Synergy but now it wants a bunch of dependencies that I really don't feel like dealing with. I'm thinking I almost need to go back to two monitors and eliminate the one on the left. If the 1st monitor is also primary, then windows tend to open on that one all the time. It's as soon as you want the primary to be anything but the 1st like in a triple monitor setup where the middle one is primary, all hell breaks loose. This is same in Windows.

If you find the XFCE4 default file manager (Thunar) lacking, you can simply use a different file manager - including one meant from GNOME or even KDE. That's a nice thing about Linux - you can mix and match the software you use. Things were a little different in the early 2000s, back when there was limited drag/drop interoperability between GNOME and KDE applications. But for the most part, nowadays you can just expect it all to work.

As for using 3+ monitors, I generally like using Synergy but it's not like a true multi-monitor capability. For that, I like using vncviewer. Basically, on the main workstation you have one "real" screen and one "virtual" screen that may be far larger than what your monitors can handle. It may be necessary to fashion a VGA dummy plug or plug it into the VGA input of one of your monitors (assuming they have multiple inputs, and you're using DVI or HDMI).

The "virtual" screen can then be split out to other monitors using vncviewer on the other computers. I use the Debian packages x11vnc (server) and xtightvncviewer (client); this combo is capable of showing the mouse pointer on remote clients (without this ability, you'll be mousing blind on the secondary screens).

On the server, I use something like:
On the client, I use:
Now, I've never actually split this out to more than one client computer, which is what you'd need to do for 4+ monitors. You'd use a custom port for the other clients. But for 3 monitors, this is good enough. You can have the server connected to one monitor, while the client is connected to two side-by-side monitors. Hitting F8 and selecting "full screen" will actually span the client across both monitors. So, for example:

MONITOR1 - MONITOR2 - MONITOR3

MONITOR1 = 1024x1280 server display 1, connected by DVI

"virtual" display = 2048x1280, defined by custom modeline, connected by VGA to MONITOR2 (this monitor can't display this modeline, it's just a way to fool the video card into letting this display be active)

MONITOR2, MONITOR3 = 1024x1280 client displays, connected by DVI.

The only "problem" with this scheme is that full screen windows on the server will span both MONITOR2 and MONITOR3 rather than snapping to just one or the other. I haven't looked deeply into whether or not there's an easy solution to that.

VNC is super slow, maybe RDP could work, though I don't see how it would stop stuff from opening on wrong monitor, stuff would just cover the session. VNC, RDP etc is just a program like any other.

Is there a way to simply set some kind of boundary or something? Like an invisible line where programs don't know there is anything beyond that.

One thing I've noticed too is when stuff goes on the wrong monitor it's usually always on the 1st. I'm almost wondering if I need to set my primary as the first. It would mean having to move the mouse to the right through the 3rd monitor to wrap around and go to the other monitor though so it would not be as intuitive. I still want the primary to be in middle physically.

I decided to try Linux 18 Cinnamon. At first I thought things were good, but it started doing it again. Random programs/dialogs decide to go on wrong screen.

I have to admit that on XFCE I still see issues trying, for example, to open a file in Thunar with it defaulting to the 0.0 display (I had forgotten as it is not something that causes me a lot of issues, but when I saw it I thought of this thread).
It really does amaze me that nobody involved in Linux has the need for good multi-munitor support.