GNU/Linux: Dual screen and separate workspaces

So, as implemented in KDE And Gnome, this is beyond "not easy" - it's darn near impossible. Here's why: the virtual workspaces are implemented in widgets that run in the window manager. They're implemented with trickery and magic and bound entirely to one window manager running on one DISPLAY.

The window manager, virtual-workspace-management widgets, and client applications all run on the same DISPLAY (as in the $DISPLAY environment variable; typically :0.0) Your second monitor, in non-twinview-mode, is actually running on a separate DISPLAY - probably :0.1 You can verify this by running 'echo $DISPLAY' from a shell prompt in a terminal program on each monitor.

Each DISPLAY is running its own X-server. So, they have no idea about each other's windows, windowmanagers, or virtual workspaces.

I would bet the various tiling windowmanagers will want you to have your monitor in twinview mode. Then they can carefully work with the real-estate that's in one and in the other, in the same DISPLAY... and fake you into thinking they're two separate "workspaces" (same word but not same meaning as virtual workspaces).

There are numerous X-window issues that would make it quite difficult to move or migrate a running Xwindow client program from one DISPLAY to another seamlessly. Not saying it can't be done; it may have been done... but I'll bet it's buggy or at least limited; I doubt you could move a firefox window playing a video between DISPLAYs, for example.

Hope this helps! -pbr

Have you tried xrandr (try xrandr -q)? It might deliver what you're looking for.

I use an old NVIDIA card with dual outputs at work. I don't use TwinView, or two X servers. I don't even have an xorg.conf; I let Xorg get its settings from HAL.

I currently use nouveau as my driver, although, at one point, I did use the binary blob NVIDIA provides. I use awesome as my window manager, but GNOME and KDE handle xrandr as well, if not better.