Is it possible to send a virtual desktop to another monitor on another computer over the network?

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid on an Alienware m15x laptop with the proprietary nVidia drivers. GNOME, Compiz, etc.

First, I have two computers, an Alienware m15x laptop (which is my primary computer) and an old desktop computer.

Here's the situation. My Alienware m15x only has 1 display port. I'm using that to connect to an external HD monitor. I would like to use yet another external monitor.

My desktop computer has 2 display ports, 1 for VGA and 1 for DVI. It is currently also connected to my external HD monitor with a VGA cable.

I was wondering if I could use another monitor, plug that into my desktop, and then make it emulate another desktop for my laptop over my local network.

Is this possible? I don't mind doing some dirty X11 hack to get it to work if anything like it is. I also thought about the possibility of sending a Compiz virtual workspace to it.

Answer 1

Here is a blog entry describing a Xdmx setup: http://blogs.unbolt.net/index.php/brinley/2007/09/17/simple_xdmx_setup_with_gdm. Xdmx is included in ubuntu!

Answer 2

A friend in IRC linked me to a video that shows how to use a program called Xdmx to do basically just what I want. The video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOzRCBGDVaE