Re: [vizstack-users] Configuring Physical Desktops( was RE: Yet another odd problem . . .)

[Kumar, S. <shr...@hp...>]

>> Ah ! 1 point to Manju and Glenn who wanted this functionality 
>> earlier. If only I had included this generic functionality. 
>> For now, I will consider this as a feature request.
>>
>Yeah, it's definitely a useful feature to support, since for tiled 
> displays you want odd numbers of rows and columns, in order to put 
> the center of the display in the middle of one monitor, rather than 
> hidden under a bezel. Until GPUs regularly support three or more outputs 
> that's problematic under the current model.

Ok.
 
>> That brings us to what we can do in the current 
>> circumstances. Not using all the GPUs in not an option in 
>> your case, since it triggers the console keyboard problem.
>> 
>> Here is one solution :
>>   - Create two tiled displays :
>>       - first one with two GPUs with dual monitor blocks, and 
>> a keyboard and mouse (lets call this "node-LEFT")
>>       - one with two GPUs and single monitor blocks (lets 
>> call this "node-RIGHT")
>>   - Create another script based on "viz-desktop". This script will
>>       - Allocate two tiled displays (as opposed to one right now)
>>       - Reconfigure the X servers on the tiled display such 
>> that the single X server controls all the GPUs
>>         - during this, we have to ensure that the left bezel 
>> is included for the displays on "node-RIGHT"
>>       - Start the desktop
>> 
>> I am hoping that this will look like a natural solution to 
>> your end users. You will retain the ability to switch 
>> resolutions as a command line option.
>> 
>It's a bit of a kludge, but I can see how it should work. We still 
>have the console issue with any subdivision of the display, but 
> I don't think it's too much of an issue to require people to ssh 
> in to do anything outside the norm . . . at least for the moment.

Right - the display setup is a kludge.

>> Let me know if you want to go with this. Do I remember right 
>> that you are comfortable with a small amount of python programming ?
>>
> heh - more than comfortable, I'm pretty familiar with python. I'll take 
> a look at viz-desktop and see what I can do, but I may not have time 
> between other things to make much progress. I'll let you know how it goes.

:-)

I figured out that implementing this solution is more work that it 
looked like in the first case. I am also giving this a shot - mainly to check
the vizstack API. Hoping to add this as an example so that it can be useful 
to others too !

Regards
-- Shree