Re: gEDA-user: multiple monitors

[Peter TB Brett <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:40:54 +0200, Stefan Salewski <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-10-01 at 10:52 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
>> > Do you have an explanation for this?
>> 
>> Yes.  Four monitors with one desktop means there's a lot of overhead
> 
> I still have only one monitor, and I wonder how useful working with
> multiple monitors really is. 
>
> [snip]
>
> But I am not really sure if multiple monitors are a real benefit,
> because for Linux we have multiple virtual screens/work spaces. Is
> turning the head really better than switching to another virtual screen?

I couldn't live without multiple monitors.

For example, I use the following on a regular basis:

- Electronics: One screen for gschem, one for pcb.

- Electronics: One screen for gschem, one for datasheets.

- gEDA hacking: One screen for emacs (4 windows: rgrep, stgit, source code,
info browser), the other for web browser (gtk+ docs etc) and
terminal/e-mail client.

- Writing papers: One screen for emacs (editing TikZ diagrams) and LyX, one
for PDF viewer and web browser.

- Working with satellite imagery: One screen for displaying inputs/outputs,
one for emacs/terminal.

As John mentioned, the main advantage is that you can flick your eyes back
and forth between lots of different windows at the same as typing into one.
And with the imagery, being able to blow it up large reduces eye strain a
lot -- before I got my second monitor at the lab, I'd regularly give myself
headaches from squinting at small images for hours...

On the other hand, there is such a thing as too much screen real estate.  I
don't think a third monitor would be worthwhile for my workstation setup,
for example.

Peter


-- 
Peter Brett <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Remote Sensing Research Group
Surrey Space Centre


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