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Discussion on: How I set my Linux computer for coding

 
mendoza profile image
David Mendoza (He/Him) • Edited

I will always say one monitor is meh it gets the job done, two monitors are great it gets the work done faster and three are a overkill don't get me wrong if you can afford 3 get them by all means but two should be enough for most programmers

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mwarner77 profile image
Mark Warner • Edited

(Disclaimer: I used to write for a popular PC gaming website about gaming graphics and displays, so my opinions on monitors probably diverge somewhat from what may be thought of as more "mainstream".)

At work, I use three external 1080p monitors in a line, and my laptop's 15" 4k display. I keep my console (putty/bash and chrome dev console) window up full time on the leftmost display, vs code on the next, Chrome and other apps (db tools, etc.) and outlook on the laptop screen. It works pretty nicely.

At home I have just a single 27" 4k display, and while it is really nice for smoothing font edges, you have to scale everything up at least 50% to keep icons and text from disappearing, so I tend to think 4k is wasted for coding on a desktop monitor. High-DPI scaling works really well in Windows 10, but not so great in any linux distro I've used. They mostly limit you to whole number scaling (100%, 200%, etc.), and the scaling is far from global/universal. Windows is also not completely universal, but at least you can do 125% or 150% without having to do anything special. It actually defaulted to 150% on my 27" display.

Anyway...point is, if you have more monitors, you'll find something to put on them. I keep (only half-jokingly) asking for 2 or 3 more at work. The primary benefit is always having various windows open and On Top.

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ghost profile image
Ghost

is like the size of drawers, closets or pockets. You'll never have too much space, only too much stuff on them. But they are also like cake, nobody "needs" cake, nobody "need" 3 monitors (well maybe some). But we want them anyway :)