Looking for powerful dual monitor Linux Workstation.

[Herodes]

Not sure where to post this, so if it's posted in the wrong sub-forum, please move it to a more appropriate forum.

I'm running a linux distro on my custom built work machine (software development). I used a lot of time to try to set everything up and have it working
the way I wanted it to. I must admit that the experience on the desktop wasn't as good as in windows, whereas installing and using a dual system setup
were a no-brainer, I had to fiddle a lot to have everything working the way I wanted under Linux, I tried a few different methods setting up the dual system,
and finally had it working, although one screen does have some issues with screen updates (lagging). While the other monitor works fine, it seems like scrolling with mouse
in some browsers, doesn't properly update the screen either.

I was just wondering if there's any developers out there, that use their system a lot, and is used to a lot of screen estate and have a setup that's working flawlessly.

If you'd care to share your hardware configuration and briefly describe how the software is setup, it would be appreciated.

Bottom line, I'm looking around to fine a good hw setup that can run a dual screen configuration just fine on a linux distro. I am used to using the entire screen estate
and moving the mouse cursor across both screens.

I used days to set it up, and the current system never worked flawlessly, yet I'm persistent that I want to use Linux on my desktop.

Any pointers would be most appreciated, and flames will not be commented.

Thank you!

[Herodes]

Surely there's a lot of you with great workstation setups ?

[Revalin]

I suggest using TwinView on a multihead nVidia card.  I've been using that on my Ubuntu desktop for a few years and it works great.  I've had problems with ATI cards having graphics glitches like you describe.

Just like on Windows, it comes down to getting a card with good drivers.  nVidia's binary drivers are excellent and fast, but closed source.  nouveau (the open source driver) tends to work well, but has less features and is slower.  ATI's drivers are kind of marginal.  Intel's cards work very well, but they're only on integrated chipsets.  It's a shame they don't make a multihead card.

What are you using now?

[MoreCowbell]

^^Everything said above matches what I've heard.

I'll add that the generic open source ATI drivers included in Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 13 are a huge step forward in performance and actually worked faster for me than the ATI developed proprietary drivers.  You might want to give that a shot if you intend to salvage your current setup (try it on a live CD first).  Unfortunately I can't comment on the dual monitor setup as I haven't tried that yet.

[molecular]

although things got a lot better in recent years, setting up graphics well with linux can still be a bitch, especially if you want ONE x display to span the monitors.

it's usually easier with cards that use the same driver, so the suggestion to use 2 nvidia cards makes sense. Using a single card with dual (triple) head is even more likely to work well.

Make sure hardware accelleration is working and you don't accidentally use some vesa framebuffer shit

Also: the best decision I ever made regarding display was to use a framing window manager (using notion, ion respectively). This allows you to use the existing space much more efficiently without having to constantly arrange windows.

[Herodes]

I suggest using TwinView on a multihead nVidia card.  I've been using that on my Ubuntu desktop for a few years and it works great.  I've had problems with ATI cards having graphics glitches like you describe.
Just like on Windows, it comes down to getting a card with good drivers.  nVidia's binary drivers are excellent and fast, but closed source.  nouveau (the open source driver) tends to work well, but has less features and is slower.  ATI's drivers are kind of marginal.  Intel's cards work very well, but they're only on integrated chipsets.  It's a shame they don't make a multihead card.
What are you using now?

As much as I enjoy open source, I'm more concerned with performance at this point. So closed source drivers would work for me.

At the moment i'm using a 5770 ATI Card with the ATI Properietary Driver. Could check the version if anyone wanted to know.

^^Everything said above matches what I've heard.

I'll add that the generic open source ATI drivers included in Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 13 are a huge step forward in performance and actually worked faster for me than the ATI developed proprietary drivers.  You might want to give that a shot if you intend to salvage your current setup (try it on a live CD first).  Unfortunately I can't comment on the dual monitor setup as I haven't tried that yet.

Thanks, could always try it. But as I was just tired of my current setup a bit, I was just thinking about buying an entirely new system altogether. I have also some issues with the current CPU throttling down (overheating ?). Will try to salvage it with some new thermal paste though.

although things got a lot better in recent years, setting up graphics well with linux can still be a bitch, especially if you want ONE x display to span the monitors.

Yeah, I used several days on the issue, googling and reading all obscure forum threads, and trying numerous different setups. And I finally had something that worked, kind of, so I've been using it for the last year. But one of the screens needs a window moved, resized or whatever to be refreshed every time content changes, it usually updates itself as well, but it might take several seconds. You got kinda used to it though, and work around it.

it's usually easier with cards that use the same driver, so the suggestion to use 2 nvidia cards makes sense. Using a single card with dual (triple) head is even more likely to work well.
Make sure hardware accelleration is working and you don't accidentally use some vesa framebuffer shit
Also: the best decision I ever made regarding display was to use a framing window manager (using notion, ion respectively). This allows you to use the existing space much more efficiently without having to constantly arrange windows.

So nvidia card(s) is the recommended solution, over ATI cards ? Perhaps I should ask my question in a linux forum as well, to get even more linux nerds to chime in ?

I never used a framing window manager. I looked up notion and ion and see they're tiling and/or tabbing window managers, incredible I've never heard about this. Certainly will try this out.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated!

[phorensic]

Unfortunately Windows 7 and 8 have infinitely better control over multimonitor setups.  I have amassed an awesome 4 monitor setup over the years and I decided to try daily driving Ubuntu again.  I could NOT get my monitors setup up right.  Oh, this is with ATI cards, btw.  I gave it weeks of fiddling with configs, proprietary drivers and software packages, research on forums, etc.  I tried 3 different releases of Ubuntu.  After all that I just gave up realized it just wasn't possible to do a nice multimonitor setup in Ubuntu.  I went to Windows 8 and in 2 minutes I had all 4 monitors configured exactly how I wanted them.  I've been using Linux since the late 90's and this is just one thing they seem to never have gotten right.

[Herodes]

Unfortunately Windows 7 and 8 have infinitely better control over multimonitor setups.  I have amassed an awesome 4 monitor setup over the years and I decided to try daily driving Ubuntu again.  I could NOT get my monitors setup up right.  Oh, this is with ATI cards, btw.  I gave it weeks of fiddling with configs, proprietary drivers and software packages, research on forums, etc.  I tried 3 different releases of Ubuntu.  After all that I just gave up realized it just wasn't possible to do a nice multimonitor setup in Ubuntu.  I went to Windows 8 and in 2 minutes I had all 4 monitors configured exactly how I wanted them.  I've been using Linux since the late 90's and this is just one thing they seem to never have gotten right.

Yes, your experience reflects my own to sorts. At one point I thought I should ask for funding and start a company to bring exactly the same easy of setup to market, only with Linux, but it would require substantional time and effort, and I weren't sure if it would be viable and I would be in deep waters as well, as I have no experience with graphic driver coding? You said you used ATI cards, perhaps it would be more possible or easier with Nvidia cards and achieve a similar setup ?

The problem as I see it is that Windows has Microsoft backing it, and thus has more streamlined processes for software development, and better quality control, and then at least those features that are not most commonly used, are often better on Windows than on Linux. With Linux, for something to be solved well, it mostly depends on someone having free time and knowledge to make it.

This time around, instead of forcing the software setup on my current hw, I was thinking to ask for recommodation for a particular hw setup that others already got to work well.

[Revalin]

As much as I enjoy open source, I'm more concerned with performance at this point. So closed source drivers would work for me.

The performance of the open source drivers is fine for desktop use.  You'd only care for gaming.  However, the closed source drivers have a convenient control panel:

https://lh3.ggpht.com/_Lb-i_VCD1tE/SvCmBK29usI/AAAAAAAAANg/MCkrQ1gv66Q/s400/nvidia-settings.png

It makes it a piece of cake to set up the "span" type desktop like you want.

At the moment i'm using a 5770 ATI Card with the ATI Properietary Driver. Could check the version if anyone wanted to know.

My 5770 is glitchy on Linux just like you described with the ATI closed source drivers.  The card is fine; the drivers just suck.

So nvidia card(s) is the recommended solution, over ATI cards ?

Yes.  ATI's drivers are less-good on Windows and just terrible on Linux.

[molecular]

I never used a framing window manager. I looked up notion and ion and see they're tiling and/or tabbing window managers, incredible I've never heard about this.

Sorry, yes, I meant to say tiling/tabbing instead of framing.

Also note there's two philosopies with tiling window managers: the one I like better has a concept of an "empty frame". This allows you to setup frames beforehand and then put apps or whatever into them. The other philosophy says: "there should never be any unused space". With this approach, you start basically with a fullscreen frame which can be further divided recursively by "adding" content (either by splitting vertically, horizontally or making a new tab). This results in your frames constantly changing when you start stuff (say you have 3 frames next to each other left to right, once you add the 4th, the other 3 frames adjust to make room for the 4th). If you like that idea better than the first, I suggest you check out i3. It seems neatly implemented. If you prefer prearranging frames and if you additionally have the requirement that the window manager "honors" your screen boundaries on a single X display spanning multiple monitors, I think your options are limited to notion.

Certainly will try this out.

I predict you will not go back to overlapping windows. I know I can't.

I have to agree with previous posters about the pains of multi-monitor configuration. It seems this part of X and the kernel is managed by a very small group of people that overhaul stuff every couple of years and -- while making it a lot better each time -- never seem to be able to get things "just right".

[hashman]

Probably it's not what you're looking for, technically just mouse and keyboard sharing over IP, but I use synergy to set up 2 or 3 monitors and it works great for me.  It's not one OS controlling them all but if you have some other computers running you might as well use that real estate, you can have screens on different OSes and still cut and paste between them, one keyboard and mouse.  No fancy graphics cards needed.  OK you can't drag a whole window from screen to screen but that's not usually necessary anyway..  instead you can have your email and porn on the windows screen and some terms up with your coin clients on the linux box nextdoor.   Or fill them all up with forum posts about pirate. 

[Herodes]

thanks for the inpu guys. appreciate it!

hashman: How, you have a spycam in my office ? 

[molecular]

Probably it's not what you're looking for, technically just mouse and keyboard sharing over IP, but I use synergy to set up 2 or 3 monitors and it works great for me.  It's not one OS controlling them all but if you have some other computers running you might as well use that real estate, you can have screens on different OSes and still cut and paste between them, one keyboard and mouse. 

Hehe, godda love synergy... That's quite different kind of "multi-monitor"-setup, though. I'd call that a multi-machine-setup. Good luck moving a window from one screen to another

[Herodes]

Probably it's not what you're looking for, technically just mouse and keyboard sharing over IP, but I use synergy to set up 2 or 3 monitors and it works great for me.  It's not one OS controlling them all but if you have some other computers running you might as well use that real estate, you can have screens on different OSes and still cut and paste between them, one keyboard and mouse. 

Hehe, godda love synergy... That's quite different kind of "multi-monitor"-setup, though. I'd call that a multi-machine-setup. Good luck moving a window from one screen to another

Hehe, I used to have a windows workstation, and running x-window applications and x-terms on it, but I wanted to run linux native, so I did the switch a few years ago. Once setup correctly, it's no problem running X-window applications this way. Mouse and keyboard sharing over IP is a nifty idea, but I'm more longing for the 'native' feeling.

[molecular]

Probably it's not what you're looking for, technically just mouse and keyboard sharing over IP, but I use synergy to set up 2 or 3 monitors and it works great for me.  It's not one OS controlling them all but if you have some other computers running you might as well use that real estate, you can have screens on different OSes and still cut and paste between them, one keyboard and mouse. 

Hehe, godda love synergy... That's quite different kind of "multi-monitor"-setup, though. I'd call that a multi-machine-setup. Good luck moving a window from one screen to another

Hehe, I used to have a windows workstation, and running x-window applications and x-terms on it, but I wanted to run linux native, so I did the switch a few years ago. Once setup correctly, it's no problem running X-window applications this way. Mouse and keyboard sharing over IP is a nifty idea, but I'm more longing for the 'native' feeling.

yeah, I experienced that too at work (X11 on win (cygwin)). You still can't move a running app from one machine to the other, at least not as easily as you can on a single-machine setup. There might be a way, but it's even hard to switch the display of a running app, let alone move it to another machine with all it's state .

Whatever, machines are powerfull enough nowadays. Today at work I had 3 VirtualBoxes in use (ie testing, mssqlserver) on a single "budget" machine without troubles and loads of java crap on the host os (linux). Fun times. Remember when one had to actually "wait for the computer"