4 ms·

On the contrary, I have a 49" 32:9 monitor, and for a laptop it's wonderful. The support for a single monitor is just way better than any dual (or more) setup.

by vakz 3y ago

On the contrary, I have a 49" 32:9 monitor, and for a laptop it's wonderful. The support for a single monitor is just way better than any dual (or more) setup. I can just connect it directly to my laptop, and it just works. When I had two displays I needed a docking station, and truth is most of those out there suck. Unless you go for the top models, and then you've lost all the money you saved on cheaper monitors. In addition you generally need a thunderbolt compatible dock, and that seems to come with it's own category of issues, assuming your laptop even supports it. Also found ultrawide easier to configure hotkeys for windows management.

hau 3y ago
I think you could daisy-chain DisplayPort MST monitors, so that only first one would be connected to your laptop.
- superjan 3y ago
  Does anybody know how to test if a monitor is compatible with that? And is it plug and play?
  - liamwire 3y ago
    My understanding is that, yes, it’s plug and play. If the monitors have DisplayPort out, they should support daisy chaining.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  On windows and Linux this works great. I have two Dell business screens, one with USB-C, a DP in and a DP out. Just connect another screen to the DP out, and you get two screens over one USB-C connection. Together with the charging and USB hub provided by the screen this replaces a docking station for me. However, Macs have spotty support for this. I believe it works on the newest Mac books, but not older generations, and not the Mac mini?
  - Macha 3y ago
    It doesn't work on Macbooks. References to macbooks supporting MST are about certain early high res monitors that behaved internally as multiple monitors due to bandwidth limitations on Displayport 1.2. That's fixed with higher bandwidth newer DP and HDMI revisions so the MST feature people care about these days is monitor chaining, and that is still not supported even in M2 Macbook Pros
barnabee 3y ago
The advantage I've found with multiple monitors is the ability to independently switch the "desktop" that's showing on each. I can have a desktop for coding, a desktop for reference docs and previews, another for working on non-coding tasks, one with general browsing, one for chat/email/calendar, etc. I've not found a satisfying way (on Mac OS on my Macbook or with various WMs — Sway is my go-to) to quickly replicate this ability to have multiple task oriented sets of windows visible at the same time and make them quickly switchable without multiple physical screens.
- walteweiss 3y ago
  How would you organise such a multiple display setup in sway? I use sway on my laptop only, but Gnome 45 and macOS is easier for me, for now. When it comes to multiple displays. The best feature of sway for me is the ability to assign apps to their workspaces, and also assign hotkeys to these workspaces. So e.g. cmd+alt+e opens Files app (nautilus) and it’s always on its files workspace that I activate with cmd+e. Quite very useful for me. I almost never open windows tiled, very seldom that I have two at one screen. So with multiple displays, I am quite unsure how to organise that, which logic to apply here. Maybe I alt-tab out of old habit, but it’s so much easier, cognitively speaking, comparing to remembering all the logic for my multiple displays setup.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I’m not sure what the high-level strategy is, but do note that there’s the move workspace to output right and so on bindings to help out. I’ll typically keep a workspace as “whatever windows I happen to have put in it, over time” and then I’ll bounce them around to monitors as needed.
  - barnabee 3y ago
    Roughly speaking, my Sway config: - Assigns most apps to a specific workspace - Assigns the standard hotkeys to focus specific workspaces - Assigns a hotkey for Rofi to filter and focus apps directly - Assigns hotkeys to move a workspace to the current output/display - Sets hotkeys to move a workspace 1 output left/right Now I can quickly bring the most relevant contexts for a task to each display, and can also quickly switch to another context and back as needed. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I'd like some apps to be on multiple workspaces, for example. And I am exploring the idea of a way to search for and bring an app onto the main display as a centered float temporarily then dismiss it back to where it came from with a single key — for example to bring up a Slack channel front and centre, reply to a message, then quickly dismiss it again.
Scrounger 3y ago
> I needed a docking station, and truth is most of those out there suck Ain't that the truth. The "top of the line" CalDigit docks are incredibly expensive and buggy. ...and they're on their 3rd or 4th iteration. Plus not much competition, so not much choice either. If I could go back, I would have also gotten a single ultrawide monitor. Plus Macbook Pros multiple monitor support sucks relative to windows AFAIK.
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  Dell docking stations have been rock-solid for me (the laptop is also a Dell) and they can be had for quite cheap (about 50% retail) on eBay. I also balked at the price of caldigit units.
  - bartvk 3y ago
    Be very careful about Dell docking stations. It's not always clear whether they're based on DisplayLink or real Thunderbolt/USB-C. The problem with DisplayLink is that a) you need a driver and b) after installing the driver, some websites don't show video (Udemy for example). This is on macOS, by the way.
    - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
      Mine worked great with the Dell laptop on Linux ;) no drivers and video shows just fine. (Anecdata, I know)
    - cduzz 3y ago
      At $work they had a variety of dell docking stations around the cube farm. I use an old intel macbook running macos, and found that the docking stations with usb-c didn't support secondary video, while those with thunderbolt (usb-c with lightning bolt) worked fine for all docking station needs (secondary video, charging, USB keyboard / mouse / camera / etc). A thunderbolt docking station and a 24 inch 19:10 monitor transformed my home office setup. Big monitor in portrait mode in front of me, macbook to left, old IBM M4-1 (trackpoint) keyboard, webcam perched on top right corner of macbook so I can have windows in either screen and it kinda looks like I'm still looking toward the camera instead of being rude. I've found the biggest problem with the big monitor is where to put the video call camera -- if you're looking anywhere but toward the camera it looks like you're not making eye contact with the people on the screen and it seems "rude" because there's the impression that you're not engaged.

by vakz 3y ago

hau 3y ago

I think you could daisy-chain DisplayPort MST monitors, so that only first one would be connected to your laptop.

superjan 3y ago
Does anybody know how to test if a monitor is compatible with that? And is it plug and play?
- liamwire 3y ago
  My understanding is that, yes, it’s plug and play. If the monitors have DisplayPort out, they should support daisy chaining.
wongarsu 3y ago
On windows and Linux this works great. I have two Dell business screens, one with USB-C, a DP in and a DP out. Just connect another screen to the DP out, and you get two screens over one USB-C connection. Together with the charging and USB hub provided by the screen this replaces a docking station for me. However, Macs have spotty support for this. I believe it works on the newest Mac books, but not older generations, and not the Mac mini?
- Macha 3y ago
  It doesn't work on Macbooks. References to macbooks supporting MST are about certain early high res monitors that behaved internally as multiple monitors due to bandwidth limitations on Displayport 1.2. That's fixed with higher bandwidth newer DP and HDMI revisions so the MST feature people care about these days is monitor chaining, and that is still not supported even in M2 Macbook Pros

barnabee 3y ago

The advantage I've found with multiple monitors is the ability to independently switch the "desktop" that's showing on each. I can have a desktop for coding, a desktop for reference docs and previews, another for working on non-coding tasks, one with general browsing, one for chat/email/calendar, etc. I've not found a satisfying way (on Mac OS on my Macbook or with various WMs — Sway is my go-to) to quickly replicate this ability to have multiple task oriented sets of windows visible at the same time and make them quickly switchable without multiple physical screens.

walteweiss 3y ago
How would you organise such a multiple display setup in sway? I use sway on my laptop only, but Gnome 45 and macOS is easier for me, for now. When it comes to multiple displays. The best feature of sway for me is the ability to assign apps to their workspaces, and also assign hotkeys to these workspaces. So e.g. cmd+alt+e opens Files app (nautilus) and it’s always on its files workspace that I activate with cmd+e. Quite very useful for me. I almost never open windows tiled, very seldom that I have two at one screen. So with multiple displays, I am quite unsure how to organise that, which logic to apply here. Maybe I alt-tab out of old habit, but it’s so much easier, cognitively speaking, comparing to remembering all the logic for my multiple displays setup.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I’m not sure what the high-level strategy is, but do note that there’s the move workspace to output right and so on bindings to help out. I’ll typically keep a workspace as “whatever windows I happen to have put in it, over time” and then I’ll bounce them around to monitors as needed.
- barnabee 3y ago
  Roughly speaking, my Sway config: - Assigns most apps to a specific workspace - Assigns the standard hotkeys to focus specific workspaces - Assigns a hotkey for Rofi to filter and focus apps directly - Assigns hotkeys to move a workspace to the current output/display - Sets hotkeys to move a workspace 1 output left/right Now I can quickly bring the most relevant contexts for a task to each display, and can also quickly switch to another context and back as needed. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I'd like some apps to be on multiple workspaces, for example. And I am exploring the idea of a way to search for and bring an app onto the main display as a centered float temporarily then dismiss it back to where it came from with a single key — for example to bring up a Slack channel front and centre, reply to a message, then quickly dismiss it again.

Scrounger 3y ago

> I needed a docking station, and truth is most of those out there suck Ain't that the truth. The "top of the line" CalDigit docks are incredibly expensive and buggy. ...and they're on their 3rd or 4th iteration. Plus not much competition, so not much choice either. If I could go back, I would have also gotten a single ultrawide monitor. Plus Macbook Pros multiple monitor support sucks relative to windows AFAIK.

loloquwowndueo 3y ago
Dell docking stations have been rock-solid for me (the laptop is also a Dell) and they can be had for quite cheap (about 50% retail) on eBay. I also balked at the price of caldigit units.
- bartvk 3y ago
  Be very careful about Dell docking stations. It's not always clear whether they're based on DisplayLink or real Thunderbolt/USB-C. The problem with DisplayLink is that a) you need a driver and b) after installing the driver, some websites don't show video (Udemy for example). This is on macOS, by the way.
  - loloquwowndueo 3y ago
    Mine worked great with the Dell laptop on Linux ;) no drivers and video shows just fine. (Anecdata, I know)
  - cduzz 3y ago
    At $work they had a variety of dell docking stations around the cube farm. I use an old intel macbook running macos, and found that the docking stations with usb-c didn't support secondary video, while those with thunderbolt (usb-c with lightning bolt) worked fine for all docking station needs (secondary video, charging, USB keyboard / mouse / camera / etc). A thunderbolt docking station and a 24 inch 19:10 monitor transformed my home office setup. Big monitor in portrait mode in front of me, macbook to left, old IBM M4-1 (trackpoint) keyboard, webcam perched on top right corner of macbook so I can have windows in either screen and it kinda looks like I'm still looking toward the camera instead of being rude. I've found the biggest problem with the big monitor is where to put the video call camera -- if you're looking anywhere but toward the camera it looks like you're not making eye contact with the people on the screen and it seems "rude" because there's the impression that you're not engaged.