Going from multiple monitors to 1

Tips and Tricks

I've recently downgraded gradually from 3 monitors to 1 and want to share the experience in case of anyone else is thinking about it.

Setup

I'm running Pop!_OS and mostly doing coding, browsing and comms via slack. With the terminal heavy workflow, it was important to keep the terminal front and center on my 4k monitor. Firefox on the left screen, slack on the right. Sometimes I'd open 2 Firefox windows to compare something. Additional apps and windows, and things were getting messy quickly.

Getting rid of 1 monitor

After a while, I've tried with 2 monitors and experimented with various windows setups. Due to the main monitor being in front and another to the left, I've developed neck pain and cramps. Besides, things were as messy as before. After a while, windows would be on every screen, and I'd have to Alt+Tab my way around.

Capturing my workflow

I've been using Pop!_OS tiling manager on and off but at the end decided to switch it off as with 4 windows too much hassle to move things around, group/ungroup, resize etc. What I've realized is that I'm using a limited number of windows presets: - full screen Alacritty - half/half Alacritty/Firefox - half/half Firefox/Firefox - full screen Firefox - half/half Firefox/Slack

Windows presets

I was searching for something that could allow me to create such presets out of the box, looked at The Regolith Desktop Environment but it seemed too much hassle, so I've crated a few scripts wrapping xdotool and wmctrl and it works!

New workflow

With the window presets assigned to keybindings, I can very quickly swap to different workflows and the 1 monitor feels more than enough.

Bonus Points

less cluttered workspace
using vimiumc on Firefox allows me to Shift+w and pop a tab into a new window and than Shift+W to pop the tab back, this results in most 2 Firefox windows at any time
if an app is not launched (for example slack), the layout will default to another one
pressing the same shortcut multiple times will cycle through Firefox windows (in any layout)
switching off Gnome animations made all much snappier

in linuxby piotr1215

80%

7mo

sp33dykid

7mo

I did the exact same. Had 3 monitors. 1 center and 2 on the sides standing vertically. The two sides just had slack and a browser and that’s it. My desk was very cluttered and lots of cables; although I managed to hide them pretty well.

I ended up removing the two side ones and use just the center main 34” one. I feel just as productive as before. Running Archcraft with Bspwm looks beautiful. 😁

piotr1215

7mo

I know right! It just feels so clean and tidy. With less things to juggle there is also less mental overhead. No need to think where to place a window etc, all is just layed out in exact same way every time.

sp33dykid

7mo

Yeah. It was all a hype for me seeing people posting awesome battle stations so wanted the same but then I finally realized I don’t need them.

edparadox

7mo

I think you've left out one of the main piece of information: the size of this monitor, especially compared to your previous 3-monitor setup.

piotr1215

7mo

My main monitor is 32" (I mentioned it's 4k) and 2 other monitors were just regular 24".

hadrabap

7mo

At the beginning of my computing experience, I had several scrapped monitors attached to my machine. I quickly realized that I used only the one with the highest resolution.

I then switched to a 17" laptop for more than a decade. Now, I have one 16" laptop and a 23" (maybe smaller???) monitor attached to my Linux workstation/server.

One screen works best for me 🙂

I got labeled at the office that I'm not a real software developer guy because I don't use multi-monitor setup. 🤣

piotr1215

7mo

I bet those calling you out are young, edgy dudes ;). The longer I program and dabble in software, the more I appreciate simple things with little to no overhead. Keep on rocking!

Byte11

7mo

Idk how you guys do it. I got a 34 inch monitor and have been using it on its own for the last couple months to try it out and it’s not been fun.

I need at least two monitors. I’m getting two 27in monitors for cyber monday for the triple monitor setup!! Going to be running the kde fedora spin on it.

blami

7mo

Exactly, at work I am forced to 2 monitor setup and barely use the second screen. More stuff visible makes more distraction. I usually switch between web browser and terminal window(s) and find it much better to keep focus on single screen rather than skipping back and forth. Also my upper back got better since I declared myself a single screen person.

jasongodev

7mo

Just be sure that all your monitors share the same DPI density. If one is HiDPI, the rest should be HiDPI. If one is not HiDPI, the rest should be a regular monitor as well.

Because your nightmare starts when fractional scaling starts to kick in.

And don't get started with how all these works with Flatpak and Snap apps.

ave_63

7mo

I have a similar workflow, although I'm a math teacher not a programmer, and I run 6 or 7 windowed applications regularly to your 3. But I just use the tile window left/right shortcuts, as well as the maximize window shortcut. I also use KDE which made some things easier, like getting rid of the title bars of windows, and making the non-focused windows a little dimmer than the focused window.

piotr1215

7mo

That's really cool!

Erebea01

7mo

Went from 2 to 1 27" monitor and it wasn't the downgrade I thought it was, I just bind my terminal to win + 1, edge at win +2 etc. and also use rofi. My dilemma is that I'd love a 34" ultrawide monitor for coding and watching content but I also like playing competitive games like apex and dota and they seem to suck with ultrawide.

EqualCrew9900

7mo

Good to hear of your solution for your workflow.

Am on Fedora Mate/Compiz. My workflow(s) utilize the multi-desktop (MDE) ability Fedora provides, and Mate/Compiz make selection of a different desktop painless. Can spread work around the desktops, and it is a simple matter to 'bump' or 'spin' to another, dragging windows if necessary. It works for me and has for more than fifteen years.

Cheers!

GoldCompetition7722

7mo

Interesting experience you have, mate! I have two 23" monitors on the job and craving for 1 more. Or just get one really big like 42". Good informative post!

User deleted comment

7mo

piotr1215

7mo

I had two main issues with the multi-monitor setup:

- window placement would result in clutter, and I'd have to Alt+Tab to find windows/apps. This is not the end of the world but not really ideal either, there is some mental overhead in having to juggle all the space, at least for me.

- ergonomics, moving my had all the time and looking at left and right screens at an angle for prolonged period of time cause me neck strain and discomfort

I also have a standup desk and this adds a lot to the ergonomics. The main win for me was the window presets and their static placement. The fact that I can swap between the presets in an instant was a must for this to work too. I also thought that I have to maximize screen real estate etc., but in practice I'm more productive with the single monitor setup.

[deleted]

7mo

Ive tried 3 monitors but honestly one is always wasted on me. Recently went from two monitor to an ultrawide and that seems to be a sweet spot .Interesting read on how you've managed to reduce down to a single monitor though.

piotr1215

7mo

I’ve been thinking of ultra wide too but I’m happy with 32 for now and also gaming is a bit harder on ultra wide. Is it also your experience?

[deleted]

7mo

I think providing you have a big screen with good resolution you probably don't need an ultrawide. Gaming on the ultrawide has been amazing for me, some of the games I've been playing are cyberpunk, outer wilds, flight sim, cities skylines, spiderman mm, starfield which have all worked out of the box.

FallenAngel301

7mo

I use a single monitor (24'' or only the laptop screen) with i3wm and it works great. I tried switching to a 34'' ultra wide monitor, but I didn't like it. I'll probably upgrade to a single 27'' UHD monitor or something like that soon.

piotr1215

7mo

Nice! I stand by my 32” for desktop. Good luck with the upgrade:)

jmcunx

7mo

I was never one for multiple monitors, virtual workspaces have always been good enough.

When hooking a laptop to an external monitor,I find XFCE and GNOME3 is great with that, KDE plasma workable but harder to setup.

For Window managers (which I use), xrandr is the easiest of all.

truedoom

7mo

Just use workspaces.

piotr1215

7mo

Workspaces unfortunately do not allow for windows presets and this was my main requirement, but they are great otherwise. I have a gnome extension that moves random apps to a dedicated workspace.

Least-Local2314

3mo

I used to be a multi monitor guy aswell when I used Windows as my main OS, but after switching to Linux and learning about workspaces, I became a single monitor shaolin monk

twopadstacker

7mo

less monitors? never had anyone i know wanted less monitors. I've got a 13 monitor setup - https://imgur.com/7OLOgxW

xsp

7mo

https://i.imgur.com/kjNiSZl.jpeg

I use 4 and a Stream Deck, but I am considering moving to 6.

twopadstacker

7mo

Do it, 6 is good

pppjurac

-1

7mo

What does this have to do with open source and linux in general?

Might be better suited for /r/pcmasterrace or /r/battlestations though.

piotr1215

7mo

Good call, I originally planned to post the scripts too but they were WIP when I made the post.

RealConfusedPsyduck

7mo

How is regolith too much hassle it literally works out of the box on popos

sunirgerep

7mo

I actually share OP's sentiment. I used regolith (with Ubuntu) for half a year on work machines, but eventually found downloading I3 and dropping in my existing dot files was less of a hassle than figuring out where regolith decided to move this and that part of the config. I'm still a fan of what regolith is doing, I just think my work flow was too customized (read too far gone) at that point already to justify bending it to fit regolith again. The advantage was that my dotfiles are pretty system agnostic, as long as I3 or sway exists, I run my usual setup.

piotr1215

7mo

I already had a few scripts using xdotool and wmctrl so it was easier than learning a new tool. In this sense, it was too much hassle, but I might check it out if I'd need more advanced functionality.

EDIT: markdown fix

mrtruthiness

7mo

I've got only one 20" 1920x1080 monitor. It seems fine, but I had been thinking of getting another one since there seems to be an advantage to having a fixed reference document up by itself while the work is on the other screen.

TigercatF7F

7mo

Depends on the task at hand I suppose. I'd be happy to drop my 3 (identical) 4K monitors for one 8K monitor. As an EE I often have a schematic full-screen on one monitor, a PCB layout full-screen on a second, and datasheets open on the third. When I'm writing software I typically just use the center monitor. I've seen day traders with eight or more monitors. I dislike two monitors for the same reason you have--neck cramps. With three monitors I find the equal movements left and right prevent the cramps from developing.

As soon as I can find an affordable 192dpi 8K Rec 2020 monitor I'll be right there with you, down to one display and a quartet of KDE desktops, only one of which I ever use.

piotr1215

7mo

Absolutely it’s very specific to everyone’s workflow. Mine is thankfully pretty simple in terms of number of apps used. Although I needed to add one more preset with zoom :D

githman

7mo

I came to the same conclusion some time ago. To use the multi-monitor setup, you need either very small monitors or very strong binoculars. Depending on how far away you place the monitors.