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It's been a while since we ran a story about some facet of people's home computer systems and I got to wondering what kind of monitor setup other Soylentils have at home. (If you have multiple systems, feel free to enumerate each setup.)
For example, I run Win 7 Pro on a Dell laptop which has a Mobile Intel Core 2 P8700 Duo processor and which sports NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M graphics. Instead of using the built-in laptop display, I have a several-year-old Gateway monitor with 1920x1200 resolution @ 59Hz and 32-bit color. I do not do any gaming, so I don't need the latest graphic card/monitor.
Some time down the road, though, I'd like to get a new computer and am thinking about a multi-monitor setup. I'd like at least 1920x1200 across 3 screens, though I'd not mind it if I could afford 3 x 4K screens. I'd like it to be compatible with some flavor of Linux or *BSD, preferably without systemd. Does anyone here have experience with that kind of setup? What OS do you use? What graphics card? What monitors and resolutions do you run?
I know there are some gamers on the site, as well. Here's a chance to brag a bit about your rig!
And, of course, please share any horror stories and/or triumphs, too!
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:36PM
At work three 4:3 ratio 19 inch 1280x1024 monitors, at home three larger and nicer 4:3 1600x1200.
That's about the most I've been able to fit on a reasonable desk.
I have run five monitors (4:3) but that takes an entire corner nook not a mere desk.
I prefer 3 boxes on my desk and 3 monitors and one model M keyboard connected by KWM and three always connected trackballs. Five trackballs was a little unwieldy when I had 5 monitors. I've always set up the one in the middle as a multiple boot machine. The flanking systems are constantly something, right now at home are two freebsd desktops volunteered into server duty (long story). Historically I've had Debian boxes, Power PC mac mini like a decade ago, I have used raspberry pi as a side machine, had a Wyse 55 dumb terminal at one point (dealing with two keyboards on one desk was pretty annoying). I had androidx86 set up once, that worked pretty well for connectbot terminal and web browsing. At one point I had a full mythtv frontend as a fourth screen at my desk but it was getting crowded and I didn't watch much TV, although it was nice for music, back when the mythtv music interface didn't suck (pre-playlist era) Also sometimes I'm troubleshooting something and one of the flanking monitors is some troubleshooting thingy.
I've fooled around with multiple keyboards and single KVM switched mice/trackballs and switched VGA and always seem to come back to one keyboard vs many pointing devices vs many monitors. It just seems most productive or least time wasting.
My usual working environment is the main machine in the center is doing something with emacs or urxvt ssh'd into something, and the flanking machines are doing some combination of tail -f or otherwise monitoring what I'm working on, or running a web browser (I rarely run a browser on my main central machine), or reading .pdf format manuals or reading online help manuals or data sheets or something. I'm probably looking at the main machine 90% of the time and the secondary machines maybe 5% each.
Ergonomics are tricky. I don't think this is possible with lower res wide screen mere 1080 displays, it would just be too physically wide. Getting room lighting "just right" such that I don't have to stare into a reflected light or reflected window is no joke and worth every hour of time to get it right.
My speakers are above the monitors and otherwise spaced normally. I have a mixer and playing L-R balance games with the location of the machines just makes audio sound weird (oh the pun). Usually only one machine is generating noise at a time, I'm not into noisy animated desktops.
I'm used to doing programming and admin work on a significant fraction of a square yard of screen space. It must be weird to do "real work" on a tiny little laptop screen, like typing while wearing mittens.
I've fooled around with X2X software to connect my xwindow screens and always find it more of a PITA than an advantage WRT cut-n-paste or whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @10:22PM
Have you considered using synergy to replace your hardware KVM?