home | list info | list archive | date index | thread index

[OCLUG-Tech] firefox on more than one display?

Hello,

I have more than one display, and I prefer not to run Xinerama. One display is 30", the other 17", so there's a pretty large blank spot with Xinerama. Instead, I just run old school multi-head.

It's rare that I want to run a program on both displays. Emacs has it right in the menu: "open frame on display". Many other programs will happily open more than one instance.

However, firefox throws up a dialog box claiming that it's already running but not responding. I want to do something like this:

DISPLAY=0.0 firefox &
DISPLAY=0.1 firefox &

and not get an error message.

In the process of typing this message, I've figured out two solutions:

1. just run Konqueror in the other display
2. create a new firefox profile using firefox --profilemanager, and then start firefox on the other display with "firefox -P other-profile -no-remote"

I knew google would have the answer, I just had to figure out what to search for.

This message is posted anyways in case anybody else finds it useful.


P.S. I highly recommend 30" displays. It's like multi-head, but better. Some hints.

1) treat it like multi-head. Sit as close as you would to a normal monitor. This is unnatural because it exceeds your field of view substantially, but your windows will be small enough that they fit.

2) use black backgrounds. 30" of screen is a lot of light. Reduce your eye strain!

3) Watch for sales: dell.ca often has some awesome one day sales. My brother bought his 3007WFP for $1200.

4) You need a dual-link capable DVI connector. Most DVI connectors are single-link, although it's a lot more common now then it was 2 years ago.