I Use Three Monitors (And You Should Too!) DistroTube
video description
Date: 2022-03-30
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 10
robsku1
Your damn right! Even now as I don't currently have an actual desktop PC, but I have some excellent laptops - main one being this ThinkPad, or one of two, X250 and T450s. And when I use it at home I connect it to a dock that is readily connected to my TV (and main monitor for desktop PC, once I get a new [not really new-new] one) and to a Samsung monitor that I've rotated 90 degrees - having one monitor in so called -portrait mode- is a personal decision that first started with thought of viewing PDF's on it, also editing multiple files with emacs, and finally it's also perfect for IRC (which I do use and love - still, after all this time. That's my kind of _-social media-._ I've found that 90 degrees rotated 3rd monitor is a handy thing for quite a few things :) But that really is a personal choice and others may find it less usable than I do.
But I'm certain no-one who has once found the bliss of dual-monitors will prefer 2 monitors over CPU speed :) 2 minimum is a must, and I think I agree that the sweet spot is most likely 3.
As for the cons... You sound like someone who hasn't ever had any space issues with your hardware ;) 3 monitors take way more space than just one, and depending on your situation that may give you a headache or more. But if you have the space, go nuts!
reply
Your damn right! Even now as I don't currently have an actual desktop PC, but I have some excellent laptops - main one being this ThinkPad, or one of two, X250 and T450s. And when I use it at home I connect it to a dock that is readily connected to my TV (and main monitor for desktop PC, once I get a new [not really new-new] one) and to a Samsung monitor that I've rotated 90 degrees - having one monitor in so called -portrait mode- is a personal decision that first started with thought of viewing PDF's on it, also editing multiple files with emacs, and finally it's also perfect for IRC (which I do use and love - still, after all this time. That's my kind of _-social media-._ I've found that 90 degrees rotated 3rd monitor is a handy thing for quite a few things :) But that really is a personal choice and others may find it less usable than I do.
But I'm certain no-one who has once found the bliss of dual-monitors will prefer 2 monitors over CPU speed :) 2 minimum is a must, and I think I agree that the sweet spot is most likely 3.
As for the cons... You sound like someone who hasn't ever had any space issues with your hardware ;) 3 monitors take way more space than just one, and depending on your situation that may give you a headache or more. But if you have the space, go nuts!
reply
Christopher
I have used three on my personal station for years and 2 at work for even longer. I have had to switch to 4 on my personal station even though I didn't want to. I ran Elementary OS for a few years and was able to close my 17- laptop screen and just run the 3 externals. Been on Arch for a while now, and it will let me shut the laptop screen (and like EOS will actually hold different settings for laptop open vs. closed), but the moment I close the monitor or disable it the system gets unusably slow. It isn't just Arch either. I have tried numerous distros, and EOS remains the only one that works properly like Windows has for me forever. Some distros just have the laptop screen still live but not visible when closed. Mouse just floats into empty space and some apps open to a closed monitor. I wish I knew what EOS does differently, because I never would have switched if they weren't dragging a$$ with little communication (and none about expected time) on their next release. I am all in on Arch now, but I would still love to be able to close my laptop as 4 monitors is a bit much and it actually sits in front of one monitor when open.
reply
I have used three on my personal station for years and 2 at work for even longer. I have had to switch to 4 on my personal station even though I didn't want to. I ran Elementary OS for a few years and was able to close my 17- laptop screen and just run the 3 externals. Been on Arch for a while now, and it will let me shut the laptop screen (and like EOS will actually hold different settings for laptop open vs. closed), but the moment I close the monitor or disable it the system gets unusably slow. It isn't just Arch either. I have tried numerous distros, and EOS remains the only one that works properly like Windows has for me forever. Some distros just have the laptop screen still live but not visible when closed. Mouse just floats into empty space and some apps open to a closed monitor. I wish I knew what EOS does differently, because I never would have switched if they weren't dragging a$$ with little communication (and none about expected time) on their next release. I am all in on Arch now, but I would still love to be able to close my laptop as 4 monitors is a bit much and it actually sits in front of one monitor when open.
reply
Diomides
I had a three monitor setup in my office. a 22'' a 17'' and a 15''. Although small monitors, (due to the fact that my company doesn't think we need something bigger I assume), it boosted my productivity a lot.
In my home I used not to have a dual monitor. But when the lockdown occured and it was required to use remote access to the office PC. I used (by necessity) my laptop as a second screen and plugin the desktop monitor as my primary. Virtualbox on the primary, anything else on the laptop. I tried to use Virtualbox (are Windows Remote Desktop) with -extended- mode. It was a tricky one but it works (most of the time)
On the downsides I would add the following. There may be others but they on't come in mind right away, so probably they are minor.
1) Difficulty to keep track where the focus (active window) is. You think that the focus would be on the -pointer- position, but is not
2) Alt-Tabbing doesn't work as expected
3) Resolution-wise you have limitations
4) Desktop icons mess-up when you switch to othert setups, or when you are remote desktoping
reply
I had a three monitor setup in my office. a 22'' a 17'' and a 15''. Although small monitors, (due to the fact that my company doesn't think we need something bigger I assume), it boosted my productivity a lot.
In my home I used not to have a dual monitor. But when the lockdown occured and it was required to use remote access to the office PC. I used (by necessity) my laptop as a second screen and plugin the desktop monitor as my primary. Virtualbox on the primary, anything else on the laptop. I tried to use Virtualbox (are Windows Remote Desktop) with -extended- mode. It was a tricky one but it works (most of the time)
On the downsides I would add the following. There may be others but they on't come in mind right away, so probably they are minor.
1) Difficulty to keep track where the focus (active window) is. You think that the focus would be on the -pointer- position, but is not
2) Alt-Tabbing doesn't work as expected
3) Resolution-wise you have limitations
4) Desktop icons mess-up when you switch to othert setups, or when you are remote desktoping
reply
Wild
I can't use less than three screens now... and I often have more than that. I don't care if they're all attached to the same computer, or all different computers, I need the real estate. I use Barrier to share the mouse/keyboard to separate computers from one master, it's seamless. There are on my desk, within my reach: 5 monitors, 3 laptops, 1 desktop. The monitors all have their 3 inputs maxed out with cross-connected outputs from the various computers, so I can mix and match what displays on what with a decent degree of flexibility. The machines all run different OSes, there's a couple Macs, couple Linux machines, and a token Windows desktop. I'm a systems/network admin working from home, with a lot of widely spread holdings I need to keep an eye on, some of these screens/machines just display dashboards all day. I miss my NOC :(
reply
I can't use less than three screens now... and I often have more than that. I don't care if they're all attached to the same computer, or all different computers, I need the real estate. I use Barrier to share the mouse/keyboard to separate computers from one master, it's seamless. There are on my desk, within my reach: 5 monitors, 3 laptops, 1 desktop. The monitors all have their 3 inputs maxed out with cross-connected outputs from the various computers, so I can mix and match what displays on what with a decent degree of flexibility. The machines all run different OSes, there's a couple Macs, couple Linux machines, and a token Windows desktop. I'm a systems/network admin working from home, with a lot of widely spread holdings I need to keep an eye on, some of these screens/machines just display dashboards all day. I miss my NOC :(
reply
Lemon
It really depends from person to person, i had been using 3 monitors for 5ish years and what i found is that i actually became less productive. Because of so much screen real estate, i had so much random stuff open at all times that it all just took bits of my attention. Yeah it feels great to have all the screens, but i personally find bigger screen with high resolution, like 4k to be much better for my productivity. Focus on 1 thing at a time, get it done, move on to the next one. For streaming dual screens are great, no doubt, but even just gaming if you focus on your secondary monitor (with chat open for example) you will objectively play worse in your games.
reply
It really depends from person to person, i had been using 3 monitors for 5ish years and what i found is that i actually became less productive. Because of so much screen real estate, i had so much random stuff open at all times that it all just took bits of my attention. Yeah it feels great to have all the screens, but i personally find bigger screen with high resolution, like 4k to be much better for my productivity. Focus on 1 thing at a time, get it done, move on to the next one. For streaming dual screens are great, no doubt, but even just gaming if you focus on your secondary monitor (with chat open for example) you will objectively play worse in your games.
reply
A.
As a Front-End web developer I don't think my current setup (2 monitors) is enough. Thinking about 3rd one. At least one monitor is used for coding, another one is for watching for my browser -output-. Things like Figma (webpages layouts), StackOverflow/documentation and work messaging requires me to switch applications frequently which is kinda annoying in long term.
And in fact multimonitor setup just looks beautiful and gets you to feel yourself like a pro.
And a question: does having different sized monitors isn't that good as equal sized setup? What do you think?
reply
As a Front-End web developer I don't think my current setup (2 monitors) is enough. Thinking about 3rd one. At least one monitor is used for coding, another one is for watching for my browser -output-. Things like Figma (webpages layouts), StackOverflow/documentation and work messaging requires me to switch applications frequently which is kinda annoying in long term.
And in fact multimonitor setup just looks beautiful and gets you to feel yourself like a pro.
And a question: does having different sized monitors isn't that good as equal sized setup? What do you think?
reply
Gabriel
I'm using a Dell laptop with 15- screen plus an external 19- monitor. My wm is dwm and I really would prefer to have tags (desktops) distributed between the monitors (as is possible to do on bspwm or i3) but sadly, that patch is very old and in practice very hard to merge with current dwm. Main monitor for code, second monitor for web browser where I'm testing the web I'm creating. Or IDE in one monitor and 3 terminals in the secondary monitor. Having 18 desktops give a lot of options... I don't want to think what I could do with 27 (if 3 monitors were available)
reply
I'm using a Dell laptop with 15- screen plus an external 19- monitor. My wm is dwm and I really would prefer to have tags (desktops) distributed between the monitors (as is possible to do on bspwm or i3) but sadly, that patch is very old and in practice very hard to merge with current dwm. Main monitor for code, second monitor for web browser where I'm testing the web I'm creating. Or IDE in one monitor and 3 terminals in the secondary monitor. Having 18 desktops give a lot of options... I don't want to think what I could do with 27 (if 3 monitors were available)
reply
sd4033
I have been running 4 monitors for several years. I could live with only 3, but never less. Thrift stores are your friend. When I keep my 4 monitor setup with $15 thrifts, I'm not too picky either. Two of my screens are still 4:3 aspect ratio. One of those was actually one I bought new at least 10 years ago to replace my last CRT monitor. It still works great. One thing I was hoping you would go into was more detail with the multi-monitor setup with WMs. I have struggled to work with QTile and Awesome in regards to 4 monitors.
reply
I have been running 4 monitors for several years. I could live with only 3, but never less. Thrift stores are your friend. When I keep my 4 monitor setup with $15 thrifts, I'm not too picky either. Two of my screens are still 4:3 aspect ratio. One of those was actually one I bought new at least 10 years ago to replace my last CRT monitor. It still works great. One thing I was hoping you would go into was more detail with the multi-monitor setup with WMs. I have struggled to work with QTile and Awesome in regards to 4 monitors.
reply
Sivak
I have a laptop and a 27- monitor I got last year. Prior to that it was always a single screen setup. Typically, I leave the laptop screen off when watching stuff or just doing very general work. The laptop was just too far away from the monitor and I'd have to turn my head way too much to see it. I did get a laptop stand so I could position it closer and it kind of works, although it still feels like a very clunky way to work. When I have some more things to do I'll experiment with it some more.
reply
I have a laptop and a 27- monitor I got last year. Prior to that it was always a single screen setup. Typically, I leave the laptop screen off when watching stuff or just doing very general work. The laptop was just too far away from the monitor and I'd have to turn my head way too much to see it. I did get a laptop stand so I could position it closer and it kind of works, although it still feels like a very clunky way to work. When I have some more things to do I'll experiment with it some more.
reply
Golan
I traded two 24- 1920 x 1200 - 60Hz mointors for a single 38- 3840 x 1600 - 60Hz monitor and found that the added real estate increased my productivity more than having two physical screens. I decided to take that to the extreme and recently made the jump to a single 48- 3840 x 2160 - 120Hz OLED TV (LG 48 CX). I had to switch my desk to a table so I could sit further away from the screen and it took a few days to adjust but there is no going back. Go big or go home!
reply
I traded two 24- 1920 x 1200 - 60Hz mointors for a single 38- 3840 x 1600 - 60Hz monitor and found that the added real estate increased my productivity more than having two physical screens. I decided to take that to the extreme and recently made the jump to a single 48- 3840 x 2160 - 120Hz OLED TV (LG 48 CX). I had to switch my desk to a table so I could sit further away from the screen and it took a few days to adjust but there is no going back. Go big or go home!
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
