Do

Do does not allow separate x-sessions

Bug #334680 reported by Ng Oon-Ee
30
This bug affects 4 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Do
Confirmed
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

I'm running Gnome-Do 0.8, but the same behaviour prevails with previous versions.

With my dual-screen setup, I'm using separate x-sessions instead of the more common TwinView, because my laptop monitor and external monitor have different resolutions and XGL is out-of-date for 3D acceleration with Xinerama. The disadvantage is that windows cannot be dragged between the monitors, since each monitor is a separate x-session on its own.

One problem here is that Gnome-Do runs on the primary monitor (first x-session), and is not launchable from the secondary monitor. That is, when I press Ctrl-Space, nothing happens unless my focus is within the primary monitor.

Secondly, if I try to launch Gnome-Do manually using terminal commands or Alt-F2 in the secondary monitor, it then launches the program in my main monitor. This is different from other applications (cairo-dock, AWN, firefox etc.) where if I run the application in the secondary monitor (second x-session) it runs itself there (so in my setup I have two cairo-docks, one in each screen). There is no difference if I append DISPLAY=:0.1 in front of my command.

The net result of this is that, though I can work-around the launching of Gnome-Do by binding Ctrl-Space in my WM to run the command gnome-do, the launched applications will only show up in the monitor which Gnome-Do first starts on. So I can't use gnome-do to start any applications on the other monitor.

The simplest solution (I think) would be to have gnome-do launch a new copy of itself in any different x-sessions. True multi-x-session capability (only one running copy, but spawns gnome-do on the x-session with focus) a la GIMP is quite difficult, I believe, and I've never had a problem with gnome-do taking up system resources, so two copies of it should not be a problem.

An alternative work-around would be to have a small plugin which prefixes the commands run by gnome-do with DISPLAY=:0.1 or DISPLAY=:0.0 depending on which monitor is active. This would scale to any number of displays, of course, without the requirement for multiple running copies of Do.

Revision history for this message
Chris Halse Rogers (raof) wrote : Re: [Bug 334680] [NEW] Do does not allow separate x-sessions

This is not really a comment on your bug, which we may want to fix, but
your two monitors having different resolutions is not a barrier to using
TwinView. I've never used TwinView with two monitors of the same
resolution!

Revision history for this message
Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee) wrote :

Thank you, I am aware that TwinView is useable in that situation, but various problems with programs maximizing over the entire screen, panels covering both screens, etc. means that's its generally a pain for me. Additionally, the wallpaper stretches over both monitors, and I use my laptop in 2 main locations, both of which have different resolution external monitors, and sometimes without an external monitor. All-in-all, separate x-screens is preferable for me =).

Thanks for the help, though.

Revision history for this message
Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee) wrote :

Am unsure about the ethics of bumping a bug. Please tell me off if this is not on. Am unsure whether there's any other information I need to provide, seeing as this is more a design bug than an actual coding bug.

Revision history for this message
Chris Halse Rogers (raof) wrote :

Marking as confirmed/wishlist. Someone might want to hack on this, but it's not going to be a priority of mine.

Changed in do:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee) wrote :

Okie-dokie. I agree its probably wishlist, considering the relatively small number of users with my use-case.

Would be simplest to allow multiple instances of gnome-do, I believe. But without devs with the knowledge of how to do this, it'll just remain a wish =).

Revision history for this message
naztech (matthew-pollard) wrote :

NG Onn-Ee,

Your not alone here I run separate x screen for similar reasons as your self. being a mobile laptop going between work and home. I to use Gnome-Do 0.8.1.3 and its drives me nuts that I can't have gnome-do on both screens.

Revision history for this message
Maharifu (mail-lmcarvalho) wrote :

Hi

I just want to add that I have a similar setup as Ng Oon-Ee, and I wish for gnome-do on both my screens... I also had my monitors set as separate x-screens, as I like them better that way, but for now they are configured as twin view, just so that I can use gnome-do.

So, a +1 to the wishlist from me.. ;)

Revision history for this message
RomD (romd) wrote :

I requested this feature ages ago in the IRC channel.

If you don't mind compiling gnome-do yourself, you just have to remove
"Services.System.EnsureSingleApplicationInstance ()" in "Do.cs"
and you can launch multiple instances by prepending "DISPLAY=:0.x" with x being your (zero-indexed) monitor.

As you can read here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/do/+bug/343575 , the developers aren't very happy with this solution, but I can assure you that I have been running this setup with three gnome-do and docky instances for a couple of months now and I haven't experienced a single crash since then.

I wish the devs would just add a simple command line parameter to disable the instance checking, so we don't have to compile it ourselves every time there's an update. People who use it would have to do it on their own risk, so I don't see the problem.

Some related bugs:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/do/+bug/343575
https://bugs.launchpad.net/do/+bug/343276

Revision history for this message
Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee) wrote :

Trying RomD's solution, seems to work so far. The comments on the other bugs don't seem to indicate what, if any, possible problems could arise? Only possible problem is if two instances are running on the same screen (not different screens for separate-X), this blocks either from receiving the shortcut it seems, at least sometimes. Since I start gnome-do automatically from startup scripts this is not an issue.

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