We have an application that we are trying to port to PC's / Linux. The current system uses... - a small SGI as a host machine, running our application - a Jupiter systems display product w/ three displays [looks like an X terminal to our application] - three video inputs [each from a video demultiplexer] The user can log in, put up a set of displays. Some of the displays can have embedded video. A typical use is to put general status information on the "left CRT", basic controls on the "center CRT", and the three video windows on the "right CRT" so they can watch the system they are controlling. Most of the displays [NOT the video] update at a pretty slow rate - typically once per second. We want to replace the SGI/Jupiter box combination with a PC running Linux. It appears that XFree86 can do the job with a suitable set of display cards and Xinerama, but we're not quite sure how to do this. Our questions include: - Who should we ask questions of? Is this the right place? - Can I buy a preconfigured system that meets [most of] our needs? If so, where? - If not, are there some PC cards we should / should not be considering? - Should we use a multi head card (e.g., Matrox G200 MMS) w/ extra cards for the video input OR three single head cards? - If we use three single head cards, can I put all three video windows on one CRT? - Are there any performance issues we should be aware of - we're considering a system with dual 800mhz Pentium III's to run this on. Thanks. --Mark H Johnson <mailto:Mark_H_Johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
