Multiple Monitors on Linux

One of the features of Linux as with other operating systems is its multiple monitor capability. As with Windows you can have your desktop spread across two or more screens, with different windows showing on different monitors.

Cinnamon in Mint has added the ability to have multiple panels (taskbar equivalent) on each screen and to have them all individually configurable. This is quite a step up from Windows as you can choose each of the elements (applets) individually - a Window List, a Menu, a Launcher and other functions. If the window list applet is put on the individual panels of the secondary monitors then the windows on that monitor automatically appear on the panel instead of on the main monitor's panel. Applications can be directly launched to appear on a particular panel by using the menu and/or launcher on that panel to launch them. There is complete flexibility in where the applets are located on each panel.

At this stage in time I have a menu and a launcher on each panel (and the launchers are all different from each other) but only one system tray and one workspace switcher. The menu and launcher on the secondary monitors appear closest to the primary monitor. All this is completely configurable.

Sharing resources between Windows and Linux computers

Since I have two main computers and one runs Windows while the other runs Linux, there are inevitably going to be some ways in which I will try to share resources between the two computers. Linux of course comes with Samba preinstalled to allow shared folders to be accessible to Windows. One of the key issues has been that the Canon download software for my cameras doesn't have a Linux edition so I have decided after a bit of experimentation that the Windows computer will be the one that has the download software on it and where the cameras will be connected to a USB cable for this purpose. There will be a full set of photos kept on this computer that will be synchronised automatically to the Linux computer for use there. That may change eventually to having the Windows computer keep the only set of the photos if I can figure out how to connect to it from Linux; so far I haven't been able to do this successfully.

Another issue is the backup which has also been running in the past from the Windows computer, which accessed the computer that is now running Linux over the network to back its files up. Since I can use Samba to set up file shares on the Linux computer then it should be possible to share all of my Home folder and then continue to use Cobian Backup on the Windows computer to do the backups just as I have been doing them already.

In other things: I have been able to get the latest version of Remmina installed and done a lot of remote access stuff with it. The clipboard seems to work better in the 1.2 release. I also had a look at antivirus software. Although it may not be necessary for Linux itself, it is useful to have when sharing stuff with Windows computers. After looking at a few options I settled on the free edition of Sophos Antivirus as being the best choice and have installed it.

UPDATE: Well after playing with the settings on the Windows computer I was able to get the Linux computer to connect to its shared pictures folder from Nemo, the Mint file manager. I am not sure if it was a case-sensitivity problem or with the Windows Live user account I tried to use first. When I capitalised all the letters of the Windows computer name and used a local account it worked.

The main issue is does it get put in as a local path? Well, in fact, it does. This is not immediately apparent. In fact, it will appear as /run/user/1000/gvfs/smb-share... where smb-share is followed by the path to the share. It turns out I can do most things with files accessed through that path, for example IrfanView running under Wine can scan and rename and so on. So at the moment the idea is to see how I go accessing my photos from the Windows computer over the network which will save from having to maintain two separate copies on two computers with synchronisation. Ideally it would be preferable if Nemo could map into something that was easier to remember but we will see how that goes for now. At least I have been able to get Wine to map that to a drive letter for IrfanView to make it easier to use in there.

So over the next few days I will be testing that out, and if that works, the Windows computer will hold all the photos and not the Linux computer, but it will be just as easy on the Linux computer to access them, even if it means I have to have two computers on for some of the time.

Irfanview on Wine

With any computer system there is a point reached where the software you like is on a different platform and you have to find some workaround. Various types of virtualisation are common workarounds. Wine is a type of virtualisation that allows some software packages designed for Windows to be run under Linux.

Well, IrfanView can be run under Wine, but you have to make sure you download the Zip version of the software package because the installer uses MFC42.dll which is a Windows component. Installing Wine is straightfoward using the PPA from WineHQ as described here.

Extract the Zip archive into a folder and copy it to Wine's Program Files or Program Files (x86) folder (/home/username/.wine/drive_c). I found that simply starting it with the wine command worked first time and no other fiddles were necessary.

The shortcut icon seems to be a tricky issue with Wine as you have to extract icons from the software package. There are some tools such as icoutils that will help with this. In the case of IrfanView, icoutils wasn't able to get any icons out of the exe file. I can probably get the icon from Windows.

Of course another option to Wine is to use a native Linux package. XnViewer is a possibility; I don't know about any other packages that might be available.