My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
Thanks!
Ben
On Thursday 04 May 2006 16:59, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
Thanks!
Ben
Get an SLI maonboard board and two nvidia graphics cards. That's 4 monitors right there. Then grab yourself a PCI board for the other two outputs... That's what I did here - works great with the closed source nvidia drivers. We tried with the open source Nvidia drivers and ATI cards - all fell short in one way or another.
Peter.
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 05:01:39PM -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
On Thursday 04 May 2006 16:59, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
Get an SLI maonboard board and two nvidia graphics cards. That's 4 monitors right there. Then grab yourself a PCI board for the other two outputs... That's what I did here - works great with the closed source nvidia drivers. We tried with the open source Nvidia drivers and ATI cards - all fell short in one way or another.
We've got 2 workstations with 4 1600x1200 monitors running off 2 (non-SLI) Nvidia cards (5200s and 6600s, I think) using the closed nvidia drivers, and it works beautifully. The plans are to increase that to 6 or 8 monitors as finances allow. We're using nvidia TwinView across the pairs of monitors on the same card, and then xinerama to stitch them all together.
If you want to go 6, I'd recommend you look at using a mainboard with multiple PCIe slots - I've seen them around with up to 5 now, which would in theory allow you up to 10 monitors just using dual-output video cards. I imagine that bus throughput must become an issue at some point, but we're using Opteron mainboards (Tyan S2895s) and haven't seen any issues so far.
HTH, Gavin
-- Open Fusion - Open Source Business Solutions [ Linux - Perl - Apache ] http://www.openfusion.com.au - Fashion is a variable, but style is a constant - Programming Perl
On Thursday 04 May 2006 19:01, Gavin Carr wrote:
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 05:01:39PM -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
On Thursday 04 May 2006 16:59, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
Get an SLI maonboard board and two nvidia graphics cards. That's 4 monitors right there. Then grab yourself a PCI board for the other two outputs... That's what I did here - works great with the closed source nvidia drivers. We tried with the open source Nvidia drivers and ATI cards - all fell short in one way or another.
We've got 2 workstations with 4 1600x1200 monitors running off 2 (non-SLI) Nvidia cards (5200s and 6600s, I think) using the closed nvidia drivers, and it works beautifully. The plans are to increase that to 6 or 8 monitors as finances allow. We're using nvidia TwinView across the pairs of monitors on the same card, and then xinerama to stitch them all together.
Sorry - I didn't word this well. I'm not running an SLI setup - just bought an sli capable system board to get the dual 16x slots.
If you want to go 6, I'd recommend you look at using a mainboard with multiple PCIe slots - I've seen them around with up to 5 now, which would in theory allow you up to 10 monitors just using dual-output video cards. I imagine that bus throughput must become an issue at some point, but we're using Opteron mainboards (Tyan S2895s) and haven't seen any issues so far.
Most graphics cards require a physical 16x slot. They can function with 4 or sometimes even just 1 lane, but the power requirements and the size of the card are limits. Some boards have a 4x slot that is open ended, but these boards always have severe limitations on the types of cards since the slot isn't designed to support high power draw.
Another solutions would be the Matrox cards - I was told the drivers work pretty well and they produce a G550 in a 1x PCIe formfactor.
Peter.
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 07:14:47PM -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
On Thursday 04 May 2006 19:01, Gavin Carr wrote:
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 05:01:39PM -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
Get an SLI maonboard board and two nvidia graphics cards. That's 4 monitors right there. Then grab yourself a PCI board for the other two outputs... That's what I did here - works great with the closed source nvidia drivers. We tried with the open source Nvidia drivers and ATI cards - all fell short in one way or another.
We've got 2 workstations with 4 1600x1200 monitors running off 2 (non-SLI) Nvidia cards (5200s and 6600s, I think) using the closed nvidia drivers, and it works beautifully. The plans are to increase that to 6 or 8 monitors as finances allow. We're using nvidia TwinView across the pairs of monitors on the same card, and then xinerama to stitch them all together.
Sorry - I didn't word this well. I'm not running an SLI setup - just bought an sli capable system board to get the dual 16x slots.
Ah okay, same here then.
If you want to go 6, I'd recommend you look at using a mainboard with multiple PCIe slots - I've seen them around with up to 5 now, which would in theory allow you up to 10 monitors just using dual-output video cards. I imagine that bus throughput must become an issue at some point, but we're using Opteron mainboards (Tyan S2895s) and haven't seen any issues so far.
Most graphics cards require a physical 16x slot. They can function with 4 or sometimes even just 1 lane, but the power requirements and the size of the card are limits. Some boards have a 4x slot that is open ended, but these boards always have severe limitations on the types of cards since the slot isn't designed to support high power draw.
Right. But MB manufacturers are now starting to produce Quad PCIe 16x slot boards e.g. Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal
They only do two-way SLI (mostly due to nvidia driver issues I gather), but for non-SLI stuff they should just work.
Cheers, Gavin
-- Open Fusion - Open Source Business Solutions [ Linux - Perl - Apache ] http://www.openfusion.com.au http://www.sharebot.net - Fashion is a variable, but style is a constant - Programming Perl
I had 5 19" monitors on my workstation at my last job. (Yes, I have something of a monitor addiction.) I had 1 AGP card, and 2 PCI cards, all dual-head Radeon 7000's. Very easy to set up. If you have problems getting it done feel free to contact me off list and I will help you write the xorg.conf.
On 5/4/06, Gavin Carr gavin@openfusion.com.au wrote:
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 07:14:47PM -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
On Thursday 04 May 2006 19:01, Gavin Carr wrote:
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 05:01:39PM -0400, Peter Arremann wrote:
Get an SLI maonboard board and two nvidia graphics cards. That's 4 monitors right there. Then grab yourself a PCI board for the other two outputs... That's what I did here - works great with the closed source nvidia drivers. We tried with the open source Nvidia drivers and ATI cards - all fell short in one way or another.
We've got 2 workstations with 4 1600x1200 monitors running off 2 (non-SLI) Nvidia cards (5200s and 6600s, I think) using the closed nvidia drivers, and it works beautifully. The plans are to increase that to 6 or 8 monitors as finances allow. We're using nvidia TwinView across the pairs of monitors on the same card, and then xinerama to stitch them all together.
Sorry - I didn't word this well. I'm not running an SLI setup - just bought an sli capable system board to get the dual 16x slots.
Ah okay, same here then.
If you want to go 6, I'd recommend you look at using a mainboard with multiple PCIe slots - I've seen them around with up to 5 now, which would in theory allow you up to 10 monitors just using dual-output video cards. I imagine that bus throughput must become an issue at some point, but we're using Opteron mainboards (Tyan S2895s) and haven't seen any issues so far.
Most graphics cards require a physical 16x slot. They can function with 4 or sometimes even just 1 lane, but the power requirements and the size of the card are limits. Some boards have a 4x slot that is open ended, but these boards always have severe limitations on the types of cards since the slot isn't designed to support high power draw.
Right. But MB manufacturers are now starting to produce Quad PCIe 16x slot boards e.g. Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal
They only do two-way SLI (mostly due to nvidia driver issues I gather), but for non-SLI stuff they should just work.
Cheers, Gavin
-- Open Fusion - Open Source Business Solutions [ Linux - Perl - Apache ] http://www.openfusion.com.au http://www.sharebot.net
- Fashion is a variable, but style is a constant - Programming Perl
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
Thanks!
Ben ------------------------------
Closest thing I have seen is Quake 3 on a 24 monitor system... But it uses a cluster of 12 linux servers with 2 monitors per server... Not sure if it can be done without a cluster type environment. Here is the link on the Quake 3 gaming setup... Looks pretty slick! :)
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/03/linux_based_24_monitor_quake_3. html
James Gagnon
On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 15:59, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
If you can hide the other PCs you can use one monitor each but pretend they are all one with http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ to make them share the same keyboard and mouse.
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 15:59, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
If you can hide the other PCs you can use one monitor each but pretend they are all one with http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ to make them share the same keyboard and mouse.
There's also the possibility of using 2 or 4 LARGE flatscreen monitors and muliple windows for the various chores. Unless your PHB is hung up on having 6 physical monitors, you can probably accomplish the same thing with a pair of 30" LCDs and a nice 'n purty X Window manager. 2 x 30" LCDs is a lot of screen real estate and a lot less complex to put together.
Cheers,
On Thu, 4 May 2006, Chris Mauritz wrote:
Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 15:59, Benjamin J. Weiss wrote:
My boss wants to put together a Network Operations Center, with a network monitoring server as the centerpiece. He wants that server to have 6 monitors: 4 for network monitoring tools (rrdtool, etc) and two for running commands and the like (ping, traceroute, etc).
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
If you can hide the other PCs you can use one monitor each but pretend they are all one with http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ to make them share the same keyboard and mouse.
There's also the possibility of using 2 or 4 LARGE flatscreen monitors and muliple windows for the various chores. Unless your PHB is hung up on having 6 physical monitors, you can probably accomplish the same thing with a pair of 30" LCDs and a nice 'n purty X Window manager. 2 x 30" LCDs is a lot of screen real estate and a lot less complex to put together.
And use devilspie for application placement.
Kind regards, -- dag wieers, dag@wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/ -- [all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]
sender: "Dag Wieers" date: "Fri, May 05, 2006 at 12:55:15PM +0200" <<<EOQ
[..] There's also the possibility of using 2 or 4 LARGE flatscreen monitors and muliple windows for the various chores. Unless your PHB is hung up on having 6 physical monitors, you can probably accomplish the same thing with a pair of 30" LCDs and a nice 'n purty X Window manager. 2 x 30" LCDs is a lot of screen real estate and a lot less complex to put together.
And use devilspie for application placement.
Or WMII 3 :)
http://pix.slax.no-ip.biz/wmii3.png more on its website: http://wmii.de/
With a big LCD screen, it should really look/feel great.
Good luck, Alex
Dag Wieers dag@wieers.com wrote:
And use devilspie for application placement.
Alternatively, I maintain a patched version of metacity that includes a manual window placement mode. We find it useful on machines with multiple screens. The RHEL version works nicely on CentOS: we use it all the time.
http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/metacity/index.html
(And I'd just echo previous recommendations for Matrox hardware: our four screen system uses the G400.)
Ron
On 04/05/06, Benjamin J. Weiss benjamin@birdvet.org wrote:
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
In addition to the other suggestions, there are quite a few articles around on how to build a multi-headed multi-user system. For example:
http://www.rootprompt.org/article.php3?article=9766
Will.
On Thu, 04 May 2006 15:59:45 -0500 "Benjamin J. Weiss" benjamin@birdvet.org wrote:
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
I did 5 with matrox cards (1x g450 + 4x millenium). Did both X and fb - it's kinda interesting to see 5 different divx playing off the same machine :)
Matrox cards are designed exatcly for the kind of thing you're looking for. Just one word of warning - get older models, like g400/450/550 (they're dirt cheap from ebay), not the newer ones (parhelia & co), since the drivers for the newer ones are nonexistant or next to useless.
It would be a nice experiment to get four or five 4-head pci models and stuff them into one box ... :)~
If you are looking to pick up a Matrox card, check out this site. They have odds and ends of stuff for sale and occasionally I see something that I pick up. Just so happens the have the Matrox G450 right now.
16MB Matrox G450 (Dual Monitor) 4x AGP Video Card --1+ $ 7.49
Andrew
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org]On Behalf Of Jure Pecar Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 9:45 AM To: centos@centos.org Subject: Re: [CentOS] Anybody ever done 6 monitors on one server before? :)
On Thu, 04 May 2006 15:59:45 -0500 "Benjamin J. Weiss" benjamin@birdvet.org wrote:
I know that with the right video card(s) you can have two monitors, but has anybody had 6?
I did 5 with matrox cards (1x g450 + 4x millenium). Did both X and fb - it's kinda interesting to see 5 different divx playing off the same machine :)
Matrox cards are designed exatcly for the kind of thing you're looking for. Just one word of warning - get older models, like g400/450/550 (they're dirt cheap from ebay), not the newer ones (parhelia & co), since the drivers for the newer ones are nonexistant or next to useless.
It would be a nice experiment to get four or five 4-head pci models and stuff them into one box ... :)~
--
Jure Pečar http://jure.pecar.org
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
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Alexandru E. Ungur -
Andrew Cotter -
Benjamin J. Weiss -
Chris Mauritz -
Dag Wieers -
Gavin Carr -
James Gagnon -
Jonathan Davis -
Jure Pečar -
Les Mikesell -
Peter Arremann -
Ron Yorston -
Will McDonald