On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 12:16 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
| Sounds like a decent idea if you only want 1 (!) monitor.
| Me - - I went for 4  - - 1900 x 1080 IIRC

I prefer a single monitor with that many pixels: 4 x 1920 x 1080 ==
UltraHD.  I don't really think that multiple UltraHD monitors would
help me.

Sorry, even if I could afford such a beast I likely wouldn't be able to read 
everything on it. I used to use 6 point fonts in spreadsheets to get more 
on the screen when I 'only' had a 1600 x 1200 monitor but now need to 
use glasses even with a 10 point font but then with 2 monitors giving me 
a 3820 x 1080 virtual I've got lots of room. 

I happen to have a 1920x1200 monitor on my desk too, but I kind of
switch modes when switching monitors (they are hooked to diffrent
computers).  The UltraHD monitor subtends a large arc.

|  and for that you MUST use the
| nvidia
| drivers and that install was a real hoot!

That might be worth a write-up.

Alas I should have written it up when I first did it (2012) but as it was a 
work spanned over 2 weeks before I got it 'right' I am not sure I was in the 
right head space to have noted things down. 

The lack of support for more than 2 monitors even in linux variants themselves 
is personally very frustrating. I needed to, again, reestablish this when my 
main system disk cratered and I needed to return the whole mess for warranty 
reasons (repair departments seem to only understand M$ and must needs 
alter things to fit their ideas even after I had asked them NOT to change 
anything! That was also an interesting odyssey!).

Even after having to do some 'interesting' stuff to get my monitor system 
working I would recommend such for anyone doing more than trivial work 
on their systems. 
The impetus for this thinking was in a report that I ran into in the early 
2000s where it was found that office workers were effective in relationship to 
their amount of screen real estate (the more the better). At that time I was on 
a 1600 x 1200 and found having room to have multiple windows open was 
very useful. That was a CRT so when I went to LCD I migrated up a notch.

Presently I use 20 virtual desktops and if there were a browser that would 
stand up to it I would have an incidence on most of them and likely more 
than one. Alas even 2 incidences of a browser creates problems. As I have 
lots of system memory (north of 16 GB installed) there shouldn't be any issues 
besides sloppy programming in browsers and there isn't.

| (My system is 3 monitors in a landscape mode and one in a portrait mode.
| The vertical one is used a lot when reading pdfs.)

All lined up?  The more obvious arrangement would be 2 by 2.

Setup is 1 portrait beside 2 landscape and then a 3rd (lower) also in landscape.
Gives lots of room for columns in the lower and enough in the other for some 
interesting stuff. 2 virtual screen - lower of 3840 x 1080 and the upper of 
3000 x 1920 (the pocket of 1920 x 840 does produce some issues).

Dee