[fpc-other] Anybody using ultra-wide or square monitors for programming?

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> Hello Mark,
> 
> 
> On 2015-03-22 21:07, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
>> No, but an observation if I may. A few months ago I moved from a couple 
>> of large (in their day) Multisync LCDs mounted flat, to 4x slightly 
> 
> I've used two 19" wide screen monitors for 2 years (a couple years back)
> and absolutely loved it. I can maybe see myself up to 3 monitors, but 4
> seems a bit excessive for work. But I fully appreciate everybody's needs
> are different. I would love to see a photo of your setup if you don't
> mind sharing. How do you layout your apps?

It's a very basic 2x2 arrangement, which effectively preserves the 
aspect ratio of the constituent screens. Not worth photographing at the 
moment, since one screen has gone down with "capacitor plague" and is 
awaiting repair (plus point: the others are unaffected). However, a bit 
more on the (Linux) implementation...

I've got two identical machines under my desk and was hoping to be able 
to use xdmx to make a single seamless display. However this turned out 
to be woefully inadequate in terms of both performance and reliability, 
and I ended up with x2x to allow me to share keyboard and mouse and NFS 
for /home and /usr/local. The practical result is that I'm able to e.g. 
run Lazarus on the bottom screens plus an instance of the program for 
testing on the top ones, it's usable but has the major issue that 
cut-and-paste is a hassle.

In light of experience so far, if I had the budget and didn't have a 
development commitment that required multiple machines, I'd lean towards 
a single quiet box under my desk with enough (ATI) cards to drive 4x or 
whatever screens.

[Remainder noted with interest.]

As I said earlier, I'm starting to have problems with visual 
accommodation, my understanding is that it affects everyone as they get 
older, and I think it's worth planning for. What I don't know is whether 
constantly switching focus between near and medium-distance targets 
provides useful exercise or potentially makes things worse.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]