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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: 2) by Marand on Monday August 22 2016, @12:13AM
My path to multi-monitor was sort of unintentional: when I first moved from CRTs to LCDs, I wasn't sure I'd like the widescreen (16:10) display so I used it alongside the 4:3 CRT. Loved it and ended up gradually accumulating more displays over the years, limited primarily by desk space and convenience to set up.
Right now the primary display is a 23.5" 1920x1080 IPS display, with a 1680x1050 display as my secondary one, and a 1440x900 pen display (one of those non-Wacom Cintiq-workalikes). I've used this setup for years, then ended up getting a free 1280x1024 LCD that was going to get thrown away, so now I'm up to four.
System's old, specs aren't worth mentioning for most part. Main thing to consider is that if you want to put a lot of displays in, you either need a GPU with that many ports, or multiple GPUs. Pay attention to what you buy in that regard. For example, my Nvidia GPU has four: 2 DVI, 1 HDMI, and 1 DisplayPort. I was able to put them all to use simultaneously. AMD has sold cards that have even more than that.
In my experience, multiple displays across multiple GPUs is less well supported, but still workable. If you end up doing that, try to stick with same vendor (and even same generation) of GPU to help avoid trouble. Multiple displays driven off a single GPU are very well supported in both Windows and Linux, with some caveats:
* Windows 7 support is spartan, but it mostly works. Taskbar can only appear on a single monitor, no display-specific wallpaper. Third party tools required to do anything else. Completely spartan, kind of annoying after getting used to having flexibility.
* Windows 10 is better than 7 for multiple displays in basically every way. Taskbars on each monitor if desired, per-monitor pinning, and i think per-monitor wallpapers as well. If you don't mind W10, it's a better choice than 7 with regard to multi-monitor setups. Shame about the rest of the OS.
* Linux is the most flexible by far, but quality of implementation depends a lot on desktop environment chosen and sometimes the applications you use. For example, KDE is great for multiple monitors in general, and its window manager (kwin) has a lot of flexibility to let you work around per-app weirdness or unwanted behaviour if you ever run into it. The desktop shell (Plasma) is highly configurable and you can get whatever combination of taskbar, systray, start menu, etc. you want on each display.
Of the three, Windows 7 bugs me the most because its support is so rudimentary that it's only slightly better than useless. It works but only just. 10 is probably best mix of simple and usable, but then you're stuck with Windows 10. Linux is the power-user option, as expected, and you can do practically anything, usually without touching config files.
No matter what OS you use, though, you'll occasionally run into an application that does something stupid with regard to the displays. For example, if your multiple displays aren't all the same resolution, some KDE4 apps fail to store window size and position location correctly, and it makes them start at weird sizes. Fixable with some window sizing rules from kwin, but slightly annoying.
My preference currently is to use Notion (tiling window manager) in Debian, and things mostly "just work" regardless of how many displays I use. Notion understands multiple displays if the correct extension is loaded, so it's easy to manage the tiles on each display separately.