Quad Monitor in Linux

[Charles Jones]

Kurt Granroth wrote:
> Charles Jones wrote:
>   
>> Kurt Granroth wrote:
>>     
>>> Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>>>       
>>>>   Has anyone successfully done a Quad Monitor setup in Linux?  Ubunutu? 
>>>> Gnome/KDE?
>>>>         
>>> Not quad, but I was successful with a tri-monitor setup.  I see no
>>> reason why four wouldn't work.
>>>   
>>>       
>> One of my co-workers had a quad setup for awhile, and finally settled on 
>> a tri-way vertical setup ( 
>> http://www.the-ownage.com/gallery/albums/cellpics/DSC01728.jpg ) and 
>> moved the larger monitor to a display for his macbook Pro.
>>
>> I am currently running 2 22" in a similar vertical setup, but since I 
>> have 2 video cards with dual output I dont see any reason I couldn't go 
>> quad if I wanted to. I think 3 would be plenty for me. The vertical 
>> setup is really nice especially when you want a really long terminal or 
>> browser window. Uses less (physical) desktop space too.
>>     
>
> That is a good point.  It's tempting to say "bigger is always better"...
> but you start to run into physical limitations with multiple big screens.
>
> At home, I have two 22" monitors.  That's just shy of 4 ft wide.  I
> cannot see all of both screens at the same time.
>
> At work, I have three 22" monitors.  That's very nearly 6 ft wide.
> That's bigger than many home theater screens and in that case, you are
> usually sitting at least 10 ft away.  At about 2-3 feet away from the
> screens, when I'm looking at content on the 3rd screen, I can't see the
> 1st screen at all.
>
> FOUR 22" monitors is approaching 8 ft wide.  That's about as wide as
> some rooms.  That's seriously in the territory of "is my desk big
> enough" and "what possible use could those be"?
>
> The only way I could see four screens being useful is if they were
> stacked in a 2x2 grid.  Then, if you lowered the lower two (or raised
> yourself) so that the intersection of the four was at eye level, then
> maybe that would look like one huge screen and would be useful.  That's
> pushing it, though...
>
> All that said, before I had 3 monitors, I would have sworn that that was
> too much... yet I use all three constantly every single day and would
> loath having to give even one of them up.  Maybe my tune would change if
> they gave me one more ;-)
>   
I highly recommend going vertical.  Here is my current workstation at 
work:  http://www.the-ownage.com/gallery/albums/cellpics/DSC02050.jpg
If those were in horizontal layout, I would probably have a sore neck 
from swiveling too and fro :) At home I have dual 19" normal aspect 
monitors, and that is tolerable, but widescreens just eat too much 
physical space when placed side by side.

Note: here is a line from my grub.conf which properly rotates the 
console, so that the boot sequence and any virtual terminals are also 
vertical.
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26.3-29.fc9.i686 ro root=LABEL=/ fbcon=rotate:3 
fbcon:scollback:128k vga=0x317 rhgb

My monitors did not initially come with swivel-capable stands, but a 
coworker of mine found a lot of 7 of them on ebay for like $50 total.

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