14 Megapixel, Six Monitor Ubuntu Karmic Setup

http://blog.jasonmorton.com/?p=24

by abscondment • 16 years ago

83 74 16 years ago

blog.jasonmorton.com

ashleyw2• 16 years ago

I'd much rather have two decent panels than those six cheap TNs. Especially considering the poor viewing angles you'd end up with that setup. The colour degradation is going to be absolutely awful.

krakensden• 16 years ago

It depends on the work you're doing. If he's not an artist, he almost certainly doesn't care.

jasonmorton2• 16 years ago

I'm an academic, so it is mostly black-and-white and some data visualization.

lanstein2• 16 years ago

Have you ever tried to write code on a TN panel? I ordered a Dell 22" UltraSharp with a TN, and sent it back the next day for the 24" that has the VA panel (and is 2.5x the price).

JshWright• 16 years ago

Personally I don't think it's right for a man to have more screens connected to his computer than he has blades on his disposable razor...

pierrefar2• 16 years ago

Well the mainstream blades are catching up very quickly...

Also, some men use a double-edged blade or a cut-throat (very rare), which means dual monitor setups already break your rule.

eru• 16 years ago

The singularity is near: http://codeforfood.org/2006/03/19/the-razor-blade-singularit...

streety• 16 years ago

I wouldn't consider my safety razor, or a cut-throat, as disposable though.

happenstance• 16 years ago

Right. I think the current max is [5 blades](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930).

electromagnetic• 16 years ago

I personally need a maximum of 2 screens for working, 1 screen for social networking, 1 screen for procrastination and from time to time the 5th screen would do nicely for porn.

I seriously would not know what to do with the 6th. I can't use it for social networking or procrastination as I waste enough time already, and 2 screens for porn is just creepy. I mean everyone has their needs, but 2 screens is beyond need.

That 6th monitor is going to be creepy, no one will know what to do with it. It's just going to be blank and staring at you, making you feel shameful that you can't give it a dedicated task it can call its own!

jacquesm6• 16 years ago

For a much easier on the neck and cheaper solution:

One 26" screen in the middle, two 24" screens rotated 90 degrees left and right of it. Raise the middle screen so the top aligns with the other two and push the other two down as far as they will go.

edit: one of the nicest benefits of this setup that I have found to date is to have a full-height email client on one side (right for me) and a full height browser on the left screen. It especially pays off when searching for stuff, no more scrolling, all the results on one page are visible at once.

Nwallins• 16 years ago

Once you've raised the middle screen so it is top-aligned with the other two, aren't you finished? Why would you then push the other two down? Do you mean to 'push' all three down?

jacquesm6• 16 years ago

Right, ok change the sequence.

Push the side ones down as far as they will go, then align the top of the center one with the top of the left and the right ones.

Sorry. That was unclear.

The reason why you want to push the left and right ones down as far as they will go is because that's already quite the height.

The nice thing about this trick is that it is a relatively narrow setup and still gives you plenty of desktop space.

It's about the width of a standard two monitor setup, only much higher.

Luc• 16 years ago

In that case (rotating the screens) don't get a Twisted Nematic display. I have the Samsung 2443SW, which, like the Samsung panels in the link, has a TN display, and it is simply not usable rotated 90 degrees. The color and brightness gradient from top to bottom is bearable in panoramic mode, since both your eyes see the same color on each horizontal line. Rotated 90 degrees it's simply awful, because each eyes sees a different color/brightness, and the angle between top and bottom of the screen is so much larger.

jacquesm6• 16 years ago

Yes, that's very true. I wonder why they even sell those with a rotation capable stand, it makes no sense.

lanstein2• 16 years ago

IMHO a VA panel is a bare minimum for writing code.

rythie• 16 years ago

We had a 15 screen setup for a while http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardcunningham/859013515/ tried to run it from 32bit machine, but with 8 graphics chips (on 4 cards) it only left 700MB or so of addressable memory, so it crawled. In the end we ran it on a cluster.

jacquesm6• 16 years ago

On a university budget things get a little easier :)

Very nice setup, I've done something similar with xdmx long ago, but with only 5 screens, the 5th screen, a mac is not visible in this picture:

http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/projects/screen/dscf1072.jpg.ht...

But I found that the 'wraparound' screen requires way too much movement, so that's why I've been trying to find ways to reduce the horizontal component.

For desktop work I think the 1+2 solution I described elsewhere in this thread is next to optimal.

This one is nice too:

http://www.jmu.edu/hyper/visualization/hardware.html

And I've seen another one but I can't seem to locate the link.

daok2• 16 years ago

Pretty impressive since it's already hard to have dual screens working well on Ubuntu. Nice job!

jacquesm6• 16 years ago

Why is that hard?

I have something quite close to that here and was actually surprised how easy it was to get it running, including CUDA support and 3D acceleration.

shabda• 16 years ago

I have as basic a setup as a dual monitor can be. A laptop connected to a second display, http://uswaretech.com/dump/screenshots/screenshot_018.png

With this Ubuntu will,

1. Get the initial display order wrong 50% of the time, (The monitor which was on the left will be on right on next startup.) 2. Wont get the the larger monitor to display in its full area, if I plug the second monitor and enable it to already running laptop, some part of display area will be blank.

Admittedly, both of these are possibly fixable via modifying xorg.conf, but if I boot to windows, it gets it right, every time, without any modifications. :(

kaens• 16 years ago

The last time I tried it, it was really difficult to do with separate video cards, but not hard at all with one video card with two outs.

Granted, I'm fairly certain that the difficulties had more to do with X.org than with Ubuntu, per se.

stuff4ben• 16 years ago

Not really. I added a cheap $29 nVidia 8400GS PCI card to my aging P4 3Ghz setup a couple months ago and it runs my 22" and 17" monitors with ease in Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04). I think if you stick with nVidia graphics cards it makes it a lot easier. All I had to do was install the drivers and run the nVidia X Server Settings applet.

shimon• 16 years ago

Just as a quick counterpoint, I'm using an ATI card for dual monitors on my desktop, and have an nvidia card in my laptop. I find Ubuntu's monitor settings app easier to use than nvidia-settings (though both get the job done) and the ATI drivers more stable.

The ubuntu configuration app has evolved significantly in the past two years; connecting multiple monitors on ubuntu is now about as easy as doing the same on Windows.

ori_b• 16 years ago

Really? For me, "plug it in and select the position in the display properties dialog" was all I needed to do.

chime2• 16 years ago

In 2001, I bought my first LCD, a 19" Princeton Graphics monitor for $1200. In 2004, I bought two Dell 19" for $600 each to replace the original LCD. In 2007, three Dell 19" LCDs for $400 each to replace the two Dells. Now, I can buy six 23" LCDs for approx. $200 each for a total cost of about $1200. It's funny how the number of monitors continues to increase while the total nominal investment remains constant.

I had been talking on and on for years about getting a 6-LCD setup and I'd even predetermined what I'd do with each LCD in a 3x2 layout (top1: IM/Chat, 2: Graphics Editor, 3: Putty/Shell, bottom 4: FTP/Explorer, 5: Text Editor, 6: Browsers). My techie friends laughed at me but at a resolution of about 2048x1152/LCD, I would have ample resolution for just about everything and I wouldn't have to alt-tab at all. My productivity in web-dev would absolutely sky-rocket. And since could rig my own stand instead of buying a $600 one, I could get my dream-setup for about $1500. I had built my workstation in 2007 to easily handle 6 DVI ports when the time was right. Now all I needed was an excuse to splurge.

Last month, two of my Dell 19" died, leaving me with just one monitor. My wife joked that I needed new monitors because she didn't wanna be married to some one-LCD guy. She practically kicked me out of bed and told me to find my 6-LCD X-Mas gift. I spent three hours surfing Newegg, Dell Outlet etc. and finally found my dream setup. Right before I clicked 'Place Order' I yelled out "Honey if I click this button, I'm never leaving my computer room." I don't think she heard me but I clearly did and for some weird reason I didn't like it. I cleared my cart and started looking for a laptop instead.

I've always been anti-laptops because come on, how can you even compare a 3 or 6-LCD setup to a laptop with a tiny screen, tiny keyboard, and crappy batteries. However, something went off in my head at that point and I realized I didn't want my perfect 6-LCD setup even though it was right there in front of me. I have wanted 6-LCDs every single day for the past decade - ever since I started making web-apps. But it was when I yelled that I don't want to leave my room that I realized that I actually do want to leave my room. Now I take my laptop with me everywhere I go and program whenever/wherever I want to. It's a very big change for me and my productivity has definitely taken a hit. However, my desire to code has risen and that is important. Who cares if I'm capable of being highly productive if I don't feel like it most of the time? I guess the take-home lesson here is that it is not the specs but the environment and experience the setup fosters. I still might buy my 6-LCDs someday, if I ever have a crazy do-or-die startup idea, but for now, I'm just happier with a laptop.

oscardelben• 16 years ago

> My productivity in web-dev would absolutely sky-rocket.

I'm not sure about this. Context switching is not a good idea. Imagine that you are in the middle of your project and a new IM message appear in your first monitor.

chime2• 16 years ago

IM is pretty much for working in teams. If it's on a different LCD it would be easier to ignore too.

rdtsc• 16 years ago

> (top1: IM/Chat, 2: Graphics Editor, 3: Putty/Shell, bottom 4: FTP/Explorer, 5: Text Editor, 6: Browsers).

The mental cost of task switching probably takes a larger toll than Alt-Tab-ing.

> She practically kicked me out of bed and told me to find my 6-LCD X-Mas gift.

;-) Probably because you kept whinning and talking about it and she got tired of it.

> I've always been anti-laptops because come on, how can you even compare a 3 or 6-LCD setup to a laptop with a tiny screen, tiny keyboard, and crappy batteries.

I am also in general anti-laptops but for a different reason -- keyboards. As long as I can fit 2 80 column code windows in my emacs I can work fine, but not if the keyboard is crappy. That is why I spent a little extra and got a thinkpad -- it has one of the best keyboards and an integrated trackpoint (nipple) mouse. Between that and using emacs I don't have to lift my hands from the keyboard at all.

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

I worked for a few months using only a Toshiba Portege 3440 (or something). 12" screen with 1920x1200 rez. Had the trackpoint. Sweet machine, great for travel.

Now I still use a laptop as my main machine (Dell D830), but I've got some extra monitors (and other hardware as well). They're handy for glance-over peripheral stuff, but I work best with things right in front of me (mostly vim, bash, and a Web browser).

This topic got me wondering if alt-tabbing for window-switching, or ctrl-Fn'ing to a different desktop, was all that much of a distraction, or a worse interrupting, than moving my head and adjusting my focus. I just don't see it. Switching apps or desktops via the keyboard is no more of a "context switch" than moving my head and attention to a different device. Maybe even less so. Finger memory FTW.

Mostly I think I just adapt to what I have when I have it. Additional screen space, while nice, doesn't mean that much of a productivity gain.

What makes the biggest difference to productivity is how distracted/distractable I am. With no room for IM or IRC and such, they simply get turned off or moved to a desktop out of view. With the extra screen, I'm tempted to keep them running off to the side.

It seems a lot like closet space. They more you have, the more stuff you find to put in it. You acclimate.

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

>an integrated trackpoint (nipple) mouse

They call it the "clitoris" and the name fits pretty well IMO. Last time I noted this I got downmodded something rotten.

TerminalDummy• 16 years ago

Why not have the best of both worlds ? A nice home setup and a laptop as well. Laptops are nice but I don't think they will ever be able to rival a true desktop experience. Their keyboards are cramped and their screens often get tiring to look at. I've got one and another on the way but I still use my desktop when I'm at home 90% of the time . Not to mention with a 3-LCD setup I do actually see that boost in productivity that you spoke of.

chipsy• 16 years ago

I've been going laptops-only for several years now. They're nice in a lot of ways - small form factor, simplicity - but also a bit frustrating because I inevitably take them out somewhere, get them a little bit bashed up, and eventually start seeing intermittent video issues, DVD drive failure, etc. That is, the "wear+tear" factor is going to be higher simply because I allow it to be.

Recently I had a change in direction and stopped taking my laptops out unless it was for a specific trip. Instead, I enjoy myself when I'm out. If I get a cool idea, I have a little pocket notebook to write the idea in. (I might start taking a netbook along someday, but at present the netbook that I have - EEE900 - is just too underpowered for the work I'm doing. So it's a web-browsing box only, which I don't need for work. I think I need to get rid of that thing altogether.)

So instead, I focused on improving the home environment. I got a monitor(HP2009M 20") a few weeks ago and added a USB keyboard and trackball and figured that I would have a dual-monitor setup with that and the laptop monitor. Except that it hasn't worked out that way; Win7 makes it pretty easy to tile things two or three across if necessary with the Win+(Arrow key) shortcuts and the 20" has ample resolution for that. And my work style has transitioned towards "one thing at a time, no distractions." I haven't used an IM client in months. IRC rarely. So the laptop screen sits empty most of the time, like right now, and I have unused space on the main monitor too! (That would change quickly if I were to go back to having stuff I check impulsively every two seconds again, but it's probably better not to...)

The main improvement to what I have, I guess, would simply be a more powerful box, possibly with multiple drives so I can keep clean, separate OS installs without even having to dig into partitioning...which leads me towards thinking about a desktop again...

pbiggar• 16 years ago

> I would have ample resolution for just about everything and I wouldn't have to alt-tab at all.

You sound like a man in desperate need of virtual desktops.

paddy_m2• 16 years ago

I have a 30 inch at home, it is awesome, I like to use it in addition to my laptop screen. I run firefox on the laptop screen emacs on the big screen. When you move to a large screen, window management become even more problematic. Fitt's law falls apart at 2560x1600.

I recently moved to stumpwm, and I have been having a blast. Stumpwm is a tiling window manager written in Common Lisp. I tried xmonad and awesome, but stumpwm just made more sense to me. I think that all of the tiling window managers are a bit clunky now, but they have a lot of potential.

The next time I see 30 inch screens for less than $900 on outlet.dell.com I plan to buy 2 and mount them in portrait mode.

Silhouette3• 16 years ago

> Fitt's law falls apart at 2560x1600.

Indeed. I'm running 1920x1200 on a 24". I would really like a simple tool on WinXP so that I could "midimize" a window: drag a title bar to the corner of the desktop area (minus the task bar) and have the window snap to 1/4 of the desktop, or drag to an edge and snap to 1/2 the available space. I do something use the "Tile Vertically" and "Tile Horizontally" commands to get a neat layout, but it's too awkward to do it all the time.

jodrellblank3• 16 years ago

So install one:

http://www.winsplit-revolution.com/

http://jgpaiva.dcmembers.com/gridmove.html

As described with screenshots/animation here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000928.html

sadiq• 16 years ago

Personally, i'm waiting for:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/samsung-and-ati-team-on-s...

6 x 30" (2560x1600) for $3,100 seems like an amazing bargain.

izend• 16 years ago

I was at CES this year and those monitors were amazing. We asked when they were going to be released the Samsung guy said later this year.

paddy_m2• 16 years ago

engadget got it wrong. They are 23 inch screens at 1920x1200. Not an impressive deal at that price. if they were 30 inch at 2560 it would be outstanding

z8000• 16 years ago

With so many screens I would think it might be interesting to consider removing the bevels on the edges. The big black bar effect looks bad IMHO.

I have no idea if this is possible to remove while leaving the VESA mount on the back, or even if the entire monitor would fall apart.

Great, now I'm going to spend the day taking apart an old monitor.

bioweek• 16 years ago

Do a blog post about this. I think it's a question everyone has had at some point. How much of the bezel is really neccessary? Can it be removed DIY?

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

Just get your buzz saw and slice em off. I'm sure it'll work fine, how sure I wouldn't want to say.

sh1mmer2• 16 years ago

I'm always curious why people think having multiple displays is so super awesome.

1) It ruins your neck. The ergo people at Yahoo really dislike giving people dual monitors let alone 6.

2) You can only look at so many of these screens at once, probably too at the distance he is sitting. Why not just use virtual desktops at that point because it doesn't cause neck trauma.

brianobush2• 16 years ago

the only application I can see is wall street traders, even they don't need more then 2-4.

jasonmorton2• 16 years ago

and 640K ought to be enough for anybody. Seriously, if you want to move things like working on a big chalkboard or with papers spread out on a big desk to the computerized version, it makes sense to have space to work.

slioslat• 16 years ago

you're clearly not a trader. give a trader a screen and they'll fill it.

listic• 16 years ago

Could you please elaborate on ergonomics? Exactly what is causing the neck problems?

Personally I am using much less monitors, but I am very interested in ergonomics of it.

sh1mmer2• 16 years ago

Moving your neck around constantly. I've had recommended by multiple ergonomics specialist and a chiropractor to only use as much display as I can see without having to move my head to see it.

It's not that moving your neck is bad, it's that constantly moving it around all day causes unnatural stress. Much like you can give yourself RSI from bad posture when using an input device.

Silhouette3• 16 years ago

I'd rather have one large display than two medium-large ones, so I can keep what I'm mostly working on centred for ergonomic reasons. But having a two medium-large displays is definitely better than one, IMHO: modern software puts so much clutter on the screen that the useful working area is often just a small fraction of what it used to be when everything was designed for full-screen working. I consider the second display to be the equivalent of having a 3GHz chip and 4GB of RAM now so my poorly programmed word processor can let me type the same letter I could write with a 133MHz chip and 256MB of RAM a few years ago. :-)

By the same token, I totally understand people who want a big central screen and secondary screens either side for supporting tools/reference information. As long as the set-up doesn't have a break in the middle so I can spend most of my time looking straight ahead rather than keeping my neck permanently kinked to one side or other, I'd find such a set-up very useful.

mquander2• 16 years ago

For one, Windows 7 virtual desktop support is godawful. There are third-party tools to make it possible, but they are rife with graphical glitches and inconsistent handling of your desktops in weird edge ways.

jodrellblank3• 16 years ago

"1) It ruins your neck."

In what way, by what mechanism, over what timescale and possibly, demonstrated significant in which study?

I've been using multiple monitors on my home computer since 2001 and at work since 2005 and I attribute my neck crunchiness to general physical atrophy due to aging and desk driving.

Usually people advocate movement, saying people weren't built to stay still for long periods, multiple monitors require head turning but not as much as walking requires leg join movements (and neck movements for that matter).

"because it doesn't cause neck trauma."

'Trauma' is a scarily strong way to describe "turning your head".

grandalf5• 16 years ago

I have been coding on a tiny netbook (with emacs in full screen mode) for the past few months and I LOVE it.

I now think that needing more than a 9" monitor is a code smell.

gphil• 16 years ago

> I now think that needing more than a 9" monitor is a code smell.

I agree with this for most simple coding tasks, but when profiling, debugging and looking at documentation I think that more screen real estate is necessary.

grandalf5• 16 years ago

I guess that depends on whether you like having windows tiled or if you just like to use one window at a time. I generally prefer full screen with one thing going on at a time, and I can switch to a different one instantly by hitting alt-tab.

wizard_2• 16 years ago

My problem is my hands start to hurt after typing on a netbook for any length of time. I usually use synergy to share a keyboard and mouse with my desktop and laptop, and honestly do more of my development on my mac laptop then my pc desktop. My laptop's keyboard is adequate but the trackpad is not. Switching between the trackpad and keyboard leads to pain.

My main problem is finding a quality split keyboard that has function keys without special functions and doesn't feel like I'm typing on a sheet of rubber.

grandalf5• 16 years ago

I've noticed that the biggest problem for my hands, wrists, etc., is using a trackpad or mouse. The more my hands just stay on the keyboard the better they feel.

One nice thing about typing on the netbook is that the front part (in front of the keyboard where your palms tend to rest) is very short and this prevents me from the bad habit of resting my wrists... since the netbook is light it also prevents the bad habit of exerting downward wrist pressure to keep the laptop balanced.

I think it's good to do whatever works,... I was skeptical that I'd like the netbook, but I haven't used my full size laptop in months.

brianto20102• 16 years ago

About two years ago, I was in a programming class with a friend who regularly uses a netbook. Whenever I tried to help him track down a bug or modify a piece of code, I always complain about the puny keyboard. For some reason, I always inadvertently punch the wrong key, or punch many keys at once, or otherwise do something stupid. It was a nightmare to use, and I was either forced to do one-finger typing (and even that screwed up) or dictate the code for him to type.

So, my question is: How do you program on a tiny netbook for months on emacs with such a small keyboard?

Moreover, the text size on his computer was comparably tiny. For me, a netbook screen cannot comfortably accommodate two heads, while preserving a decent amount of code on the screen. My head usually obscures the entire screen and he'll have to remind me not to look so closely.

My second question is: How do you deal with text size without sacrificing the amount of code on the screen?

grandalf5• 16 years ago

They keyboard is 95% of full size. I think people get psyched out by small keyboards but that after a few hours on it your hands naturally adjust (perhaps practice going between keyboards helps)...

I don't use a particularly small font. I find that emacs works great -- switching between buffers, toggling between marks, bookmarks, etc., is extremely easy, and some chords are easier to type b/c of the keyboard design.

I have the font size set to 10pt which seems to be about the right size. I would probably use that size even on a larger monitor. Subpixel rendering and the LED backlight on this netbook (plus a nice emacs color theme) makes the text read very easily.

For documentation, I just open it in a web browser and switch with alt-tab or ctrl-tab (within the browser).

jorsh• 16 years ago

Wow! That's six whole displays I can't do anything useful on!

andrewljohnson• 16 years ago

This is what I use: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3370/3638277193_27cc47d9b8.jp.... The only extra hardware I need to run a 30 and a 24 off of my Macbook is a USB->DVI adapter... less than a hundred bucks.

His set up is pretty nice, though I don't think I could use all of those screens.

Some of the prices he throws out in his article are also kind of whack. I don't know of any Macbooks that cost $3600.

jodrellblank3• 16 years ago

In a multiple monitor discussion, it's never inappropriate to link to Stefan Didak's home office: http://www.stefandidak.com/office/

14 Megapixel, Six Monitor Ubuntu Karmic Setup

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