The iMac and HP Z1 have a bi-directional DisplayPort/Thunderbolt
port, which
lets them be used as a Display for another computer. Apple calls it Target
Display Mode, though HP doesn't seem to have a special name for it. This is
really quite useful, I've used an iMac hooked up to a Linux machine at a
previous job, and it's awesome to switch between the two machines when
you've only got space for one display on the desk. The feature is invoked by
a fairly non-standard keyboard combination. Here is a video illustrating
what I mean (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Y7_OZgBX8kQ#... ),
note how he switches the iMac from being the display for the MacBook to
being an iMac again via keyboard shortcut (sort of off-screen).
However, this feature is only implemented in OS X and Windows (via HP's My
Display application) on the iMac and Z1 respectively. Which means that if,
for example, a Z1 has Linux as the primary OS, the Z1 cannot currently be
used as a monitor for a laptop or another computer (via Target Display
Mode). As far as I've been able to discover, Target Display Mode does not
exist under any flavor of Linux.
What would it take to support this in Fedora? Is this a Desktop-centric
feature for Gnome/KDE/Cinnamon, or is this something that would/should be
part of the Linux kernel itself? I don't think it's directly part of a
graphics driver (at least on Windows, since HP released My Display as a
separate program), but again I'm not sure.
You'd have to reverse engineer or ask HP/Apple what they actually do for this
to work.
then implement that.
Dave.