How do I configure xdmx on my Ubuntu machines?

I've got a desktop machine and a laptop, both running Ubuntu 10.04.
I want to be able to use the laptop screen as a secondary monitor for the desktop, like MaxiVista allows you to do with Windows (their home page has a nice animation showing what I'd like to accomplish).

Searching the web turned up that this is possible on Linux using software called xdmx.
I installed the xdmx and xdmx-tools packages from the repositories, but have been unsuccessful in getting it to work.

I've read somewhere that I should have both X servers listening on TCP, but I don't know how I'd do that. I've looked through the man pages for xdmx but that didn't really get me very far.

Does anyone have experience with getting xdmx up and running?

Kenny Rasschaert

Posted 2010-08-27T20:09:31.347

Reputation: 992

do you mean xbmc (X-Box Media Center) or is there a program xdmc? – James Mertz – 2010-08-27T23:34:25.997

I mean the Distributed Multihead X Project :) – Kenny Rasschaert – 2010-08-28T00:25:59.003

I don't know the answer, but asking this on http://unix.stackexchange.com/ may be a good idea.

– phunehehe – 2010-09-20T02:47:13.200

Answers

I don't have experience with xdmx, but the gdmsetup GUI is the easiest way I know to get the X server listening on TCP. Check the security tab.

Karl Bielefeldt

Posted 2010-08-27T20:09:31.347

Reputation: 1 050

Unfortunately, GDM has been rewritten and Ubuntu 10.04 has the new version. gdmsetup has been stripped down and no longer has the functionality you describe. There isn't a suitable GUI replacement yet as far as I can tell. – Kenny Rasschaert – 2010-08-27T22:48:25.323

Sorry about that, it's been a long time since I personally did it. I believe all the manual configuration you need is at http://library.gnome.org/admin/gdm/2.30/configuration.html.en#xdmcpsection

– Karl Bielefeldt – 2010-08-28T01:30:31.227

Edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf - where it says DisallowTCP=true you want DisallowTCP=false. You may also need to comment out -nolisten tcp in /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc. This should get the X server listening on TCP.

Check if it is with telnet <IP adress> 6000. It should successfully connect but not show any output (or perhaps a daemon message?).

What other troubles are you running into? What error messages do you get when you try to make it run?

imoatama

Posted 2010-08-27T20:09:31.347

Reputation: 1 906