
14 Megapixel, Six Monitor Ubuntu Karmic Setup  - abscondment
http://blog.jasonmorton.com/?p=24
======
chime
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.

~~~
rdtsc
> (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
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.

------
jacquesm
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.

~~~
Luc
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.

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

------
JshWright
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...

~~~
pierrefar
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
The singularity is near: [http://codeforfood.org/2006/03/19/the-razor-blade-
singularit...](http://codeforfood.org/2006/03/19/the-razor-blade-singularity/)

~~~
pierrefar
For some reason, the word "ouch" came to mind :)

------
z8000
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
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?

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

------
rythie
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.

~~~
jacquesm
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...](http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/projects/screen/dscf1072.jpg.html)

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.

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

~~~
lanstein
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).

~~~
ashleyw
Same, had my 24" TN for 2 days before returning it for a HP IPS panel for 2.5x
the price — so glad I did. Even at the optimal viewing angle, colours were
fundamentally lighter at the bottom (and darker at the top), making text in
the bottom 1/3rd straining on the eyes. Never again, given a budget, I'd much
rather to compromise on the computer hardware than the monitor.

------
paddy_m
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.

~~~
Silhouette
> 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.

~~~
jodrellblank
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>

~~~
Silhouette
Many thanks, that's exactly what I wanted. I searched for tools like that a
while ago and never found anything that did it at the time, so it's nice to
see someone meeting the need.

------
grandalf
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.

~~~
brianto2010
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?

~~~
grandalf
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).

~~~
brianto2010
Thanks for the reply!

I guess I was a bit one-sided on my keyboard judgment. However, could you
elaborate on your emacs chording remark? How exactly is it easier? (I'm not an
emacs user)

This may be a bit off-topic, but I've heard stories about people suffering
from eye strain due to bright LED lights and/or smaller font sizes. Have you
ever suffered from eye strain due to extended use? How does coding on a
netbook feel if you use it for an extended period?

Lastly, I'm concerned about performance issues. I've heard that netbooks are
notoriously slow, which implies slowing down the coding process? Is that true
for you? Does it allow for virtual desktops and is it fast (enough)?

~~~
grandalf
Emacs is designed to be used 100% by keyboard... one way it has evolved is to
support chords (holding down multiple keys then pressing another)... This
keyboard is flat and the keys do not have big "trenches" between them, which
makes it easy to hold down (for example) shift and ctrl at once.

I have not experienced eye strain from the display brightness, though a few
times I have temporarily made the font larger (I find that sometimes I just
feel like using a 12pt font to write code)...

The netbook is somewhat slow (about 70% the speed of my regular laptop for
things like running a test suite, etc. I have actually enjoyed this and taken
the extra time to take a few deep breaths and practice mindfulness :) I know
it sounds weird but it's easy to get caught up in the rush to write more code
-- to the point where even a very fast laptop will feel mind-numbingly slow at
times... I know this one is a bit slower, and by accepting that and enjoying
the occasional moment of patient waiting I have come to enjoy some of those
previously annoying slowdowns...

------
andrewljohnson
This is what I use:
[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3370/3638277193_27cc47d9b8.jp...](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3370/3638277193_27cc47d9b8.jpg?v=0).
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.

------
sh1mmer
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.

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

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

~~~
brianobush
No, I am not, but I know a few. Depends on the markets you trade and the
analysis you do though.

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

~~~
jacquesm
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
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. :(

~~~
justin_vanw
The reason you are having problems is that the first monitor is selected by
the bios at boot time. If there is no monitor attached, it has to make the
'first' monitor the one on the laptop. If the laptop lid is closed, it may
pick the external as the first monitor.

Generally the easiest way to get this done is to have nvidia graphics and use
nvidia-settings. If you have some less well supported graphics setup, welcome
to the world of linux!

------
sadiq
Personally, i'm waiting for:

[http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/samsung-and-ati-team-
on-s...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/samsung-and-ati-team-on-
syncmaster-md230-mega-displays-for-wide/2)

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

~~~
izend
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.

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

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

