I use GNU/Linux on the desktop. This is for both ideological and practical reasons. I develop FOSS Health Software, and my preferred languages work best on GNU/Linux.
I also believe in Software Freedom.
Sometimes I will use proprietary software, if it is obvious that I need to do that in order to 1) further the overall FOSS in Healthcare movement or 2) put food on the table.
It was with some reservation that I have used the nvidia proprietary drivers in order to get three monitors working. I have used Red Hat for years and I usually like to use the latest version of Fedora for my desktop. However, I do not like upgrading as often as Fedora releases. I often get two or three versions behind. I had three monitors working as a single merged desktop on Fedora 9. Almost immediately after Fedora 9 went unsupported, (1 month after two higher versions existed with Fedora 11) an yum update of the livna rpms crashed my desktop.
Since then I have been scrambling to get a working multiple monitor, with merged desktop working.
This has been a painful, brutal process. I have tried two generations of 4 different major distros. I have bought and entirely new computer. In the end I ordered two huge Dell monitors because I could only get two monitors to work at one time.
I will spare you the minuta of what did and did not work. Here is what I discovered during my three month ordeal:
- Multiple Monitor, merged desktop, and Multi-head support is one of GNU/Linux’s greatest weaknesses.
- Multiple Monitor almost never works out of the box.
- Debugging Multiple Merged Monitors is a nightmare.
- Searching for solutions is painful. Almost infinite software and hardware version differences makes what you find almost always useless.
- While x.org is advancing, it is a very poorly managed project.
- Nvidia is making development so painful with proprietary licenses that they should be boycotted.
- By using nvidia’s drivers, rather than participating in efforts to replace them I have been making the problem worse.
I should know better. If I can help it, I will never use a proprietary GNU/Linux module again.
-FT
If it is any comfort, Nvidia multi-monitor configuration is a bit tricky even on Windows – with a near continuous tug-of-war between Windows Display manager and the Nvidia Desktop Manager – especially if one has the audacity to try and retain two different configurations (one for use with multimedia, another for desktop aps for example).
I use Ubuntu and agree that it is almost a necessity to use Nvidias proprietary (closed source) drivers in order to get meaningful 3D performance, but that is partially NVidia’s fault for keeping the inner workings and optimizations of their hardware close to the chest – This leaves an opportunity of other competitors who get the benefits of FOSS to gain market share. If knowing API’s and driver info will give away all NVidia’s secrets, how secret can they be for long?