Asklemmy

What is a rainbow computer?

I use multiple monitors for audio production. My use case is a bit weird since I code Csound and use a DAW, which is unconventional. It's great for having the DAW up on the 4k, and some code or docs or both on the 1080p, 144Hz. If you didn't guess from the mixture of resolutions and frame rates, I've got gaming covered as well.

Truthfully, the 4k probably has the real estate to do all that on its own, but it was the last monitor I bought and why not use the other? I'm too lazy to figure out a setup to hook up the other 1080s I have lying around. (And don't need the space in any case)

I'm a 3 monitor person as well. 34" ultrawide as my main with two 24" widescreens side-to-side immediately above it. I use it for work and personal use.
Ultrawide has my main programs for work: internet browsers and job specific programs get about 60% of the real estate on the left, while pdf's, and other less essential programs go to the right 40% of the screen.
The top left monitor gets Teams, Excel docs, or auxiliary browsers.
Top right gets email and media (YouTube, Spotify, etc) or any overfill if I'm dealing with a particularly cluttered job.

For personal, ultrawide is obviously used for games, movies, etc, while top left has task manager, MSI Afterburner, and Throttlestop (I run a laptop). And the top right has Discord.

Teacher here. I have my laptop (16”) and an ultra wide (34”) on my desk, and a projector behind me. I keep my email, attendance, and calendar on the laptop screen.

On the ultra wide, I keep my grade books and various spreadsheets, since more width makes it easier to see more data, and I have my daily agendas/lesson plans. Again, more width makes it easier to see the whole week at once. I keep that fixed to 2/3rds width of the screen, and the other side is reserved for Spotify at like 1/6th width

The projector is used to show the daily agenda, videos, instructions, etc. I very frequently screencast my iPad to the projector, so I can fill out worksheets on it with the class and they can see me write or circle things.

I can’t even fathom having any less screen real estate now. I gotta be able to see it all at once!

I have 4. My main and second are 46" each, the 3rd. is a 27" in normal/landscape, and the 4th is a 27" in portrait. The main is in front of me, the 2nd. is to the right and angled toward me, the 3rd. faces me at 90 degrees from the main, and the 4th. Is mounted above the 3rd. I used them originally for streaming and all of the windows I had open to monitor everything at the time as well as the game I was playing. Now I find them useful for working on projects, watching videos or movies while I play a game, and working on multiple spreadsheets at the same time. The one in portrait is especially helpful when I'm looking at a season's worth of a scheduling spreadsheet.

I have three identical monitors in a row. Primarily I use the center one, for productive work and gaming, but often I'll have something up on the second screen that I'm working with as well. It's more rare that I actively use the third one, but some tasks have more than two or three windows and now I can see all of them full size at once.

I've occasionally used them as a single ultra wide screen for gaming, but since then I've gotten an hmd for VR and that is better.

Backend dev. I have an ultrawide (like two monitors in one).

Sometimes I need to test the full stack and need a lot (8+) terminals. I try to tile them all on a separate virtual desktop.

Most commonly though, I center my main application and can have two smaller, peripheral applications, one on each side.

When doing full stack, I need a browser, IDE and two terminals, tiled to give more space for the browser.

1. Teams, Outlook
2. VNC/Second virtual machine monitor if needed
3. Virtual Machine

If I am...

...gaming, I run the game on one monitor and something like a Wiki for said game on the other.

...doing music I have the DAW on the big screen and everything else on the other.

...working I have my focus point (CLI, IDE, SQL Dev, etc) on the small screen and all the noise (e-mail, chat, browsers, etc) on the big screen. Small screen is better for focus.

Single large 48” 4K gang here. It’s like 4x 24”+ 1080p monitors in a square with no bezels.

2 27” 4k monitors. I do 98% of everything on the main monitor. The screen to the right contains a few sticky notes (I use Zhorn Stickies) and a Ticktick widget with all my tasks for the day. When I start up Obsidian, I have a saved Ivy Lee list that appears in a spot on the right side monitor as well. It’s just basically quick-glance scrap space.

not a software dev, but a linux user and a stout technology enthusiast.

I have 3 monitors setup on my primary workstation. Two landscape in a stacked arrangement, it's just tidy and works well enough for a secondary media display, organizational monitor. And then my third is portrait for anything i keep long term tabs on, chat programs, music player, system resources, etc...

I recently switched from KDE to i3wm, and i find i need inherently less monitor. i3wm does all the sorting organization and bullshit i hate for me automagically, it's perfect for opening a terminal to check something, or work on something real quick, and being able to have one static window, and two tabbed/stacked windows on one monitor is HUGE. Super nice for terminal breakouts with a browser for documentation. If you're ever balls deep in a config and testing shit actively, you'll immediately understand how much of a godsend it is.

Anyway, floating window managers are dead and anything shipping a floating window manager is a dead product on arrival.

I have 2 at work. Sometimes I just have our ticket software on one and Firefox on another both full screen. When works crunching I might have multiple PDF manuals open on one and PDF schematics on another and could use a 3rd for a browser window to search for old similar problems in our daily reports. I'm able to work best when I can keep 1 screen dedicated to what I'm working on and the others for information gathering.

At home I typically just have 1 screen for gaming. I might set my laptop up on the desk if I want to browse the web or chat while playing.

Two and a half monitors here. Two connected to my desktop (one normal one vertical) and my laptop below them.

My laptop is for Teams calls, and the occasional reference page or video, but is mostly ignored until I need it. The main large monitor for editors and email. The vertical one for references and notes.

I would love a third monitor for the desktop but my desk is too narrow for that to be realistic.

Data on one side, assessment write up on the other. Extremely convenient. Not sure if I’m more productive or if I’m just happier.

Gaming: I have a game that has tons of third party software that tracks game elements real-time that are far easier to read, contain more information, and more readily understandable than any in-game menu. So play the game on one monitor, have the apps running in windows on the second one.

3D design. Have the work window open for maximum real estate on one monitor, have pop-out menus and tools on the other for things that maybe don’t have hot keys or shortcuts assigned. Also, a small browser window for “how do I” question when I hit a roadblock.

2 is the bare minimum for work as a sysadmin.
3 is better, then I can dedicate one to communication (email, Teams, softphone), one for documentation and one to actually work on. I could see 4 being useful if you work both locally and on terminal servers but I've never tried it.

Code, editors, terminal, and most browser tabs on the right..

Calendar, Slack, some more browser windows on the left, sometimes some debugging tools.

Third smaller screen off to the side for media if I want to throw on something in the background.

I'm more productive than anyone else on my team, and would argue more productive than the majority of people in my whole department. I use a single 28" monitor.

Primary "workspace", comms, docs/reading/reference data.

I used to use my 3rd monitor for company email and chat programs so they would stay out of the way of my actual work.

• Monitor 1: Outlook
• Monitor 2: Browser and various messaging apps
• Monitor 3 (the big screen): IDE

I have three. Left for email, right for Teams, middle for whatever I'm working on. Then I cover up Teams and Email (in that order) when I need to see multiple things at once (e.g., a second instance of VS or SSMS or a browser).

Not a computer person; just a worker with an office. I keep my laptop vertical to the right with my email/calendar usually open. I use a monitor left of this - it's big enough that I can comfortably have 2-3 windows on it - so i can have 4 things open at a time. When i have a zoom, meet, or WebEx, that takes one; second is whatever I'm supposed to report in that meeting; third and fourth are what I'm actually working on. My biggest problem is that the vertical laptop has the camera and in some video meeting apps I'm in portrait while everyone else is landscape.

On a Mac the Expose features such as ability to customize your screen rather than have to deal with fixed real estate plus additional virtual desktops are also highly notable in that regard. There are definitely advantages of having additional physical screens over the window management approach, but also vice versa too. I would say just try it, but note that it does take quite a bit of getting used to, as too in a sense does multiple monitors especially if trying to use different windows from the same app - browser - on different ones.

Also if cost is no factor at all, instead of multiple monitors you can have large nice screen + laptop, for the ultimate portability. There too there are advantages and disadvantages both - e.g. while working on one the other will fall asleep, if the nice screen is a separate computer rather than mere monitor.

To someone wondering what to try: something will appeal to you - listen to your inner voice and let it guide you! If you are wrong, you still learn from the experience;-).

After having tried most standard configurations at various jobs and home (never a third monitor though, I prefer the ease and simplicity of a single large monitor. Everything is a few keystrokes away but I tend not to need to see all things at the same time. Sometimes, extremely rarely, it does seem too constraining, but not enough to justify the additional cost of a second monitor (not just money but setup and my attention time), and this works well enough for me. Others will similarly do what works best for them in turn.

I always have used 2. I use multiple desktops really hard (for a long time in Linux and MacOS, and with third party Windows stuff till they finally caught up) and find it more convenient for compartmentalizing than multiple monitors.

The only times I want to (and occasionally do) go more than 2 is watching F1 with data viewing and so many camera angles up

Chat/docs/IDE across three monitors. Throw in a terminal and music player too tiled on the two vertical monitors.

Three monitors here. I'm an engineer so left monitor is usually reference material (drawings, spec sheets, formulae, etc), center is usually my primary workspace (email, python, CAD, etc) and right is music, communications, and calendar for the next goddamned meeting.

Left and center are 24" 1080p, right is 15" laptop. I'm thinking of upgrading the next time the office gets tech money.

I have four monitors. Two slightly angled directly in front of me, one angled on the left and a small 10 inch directly below my two main monitors that I use specifically for discord and my friend's chat app he's working on.

Why two directly in front of me with the split in the middle? I only have to shift my head slightly to move between the game I'm playing and whatever I'm watching.

But it's more useful when I'm working on pixel art because I can have my drawing on one main monitor and my reference in the other while having a show or stream on the secondary angled on my left and chat stays on the small monitor.

As for if that helps productivity, I have no idea.

But I sure like my setup now.

I have two monitors: a 27 inch 1440p and a 17 inch CRT for retro gaming. No productivity.

Two monitors one computer? Bah! Why not two monitors two computers!

One main monitor connected to my Windows machine, and a second monitor next to it connected to my work Mac. Using Synergy, one mouse and keyboard plugged into Windows controls both machines.

Then, add a Framework laptop propped up on the left running Linux, also controlled with Synergy. Three monitors, three computers! Now when people ask what OS I run it's an easy answer: all of them at the same time lol

At home I have the game I'm playing on one screen and Discord and a web browser on the other so I can communicate and look things up without needing to alt tab.

For work I generally have references, teams, email, and other stuff on other screens and a main one that I'm working on. Like querying a database while testing, editing screenshots for docs and issues, having reference docs open, etc. I don't do development itself, but do a lot of requirements documentation, testing, and project management stuff on web apps. Sometimes it is just two screens, but sometimes I have the laptop open too and put teams and email on it so I don't have to bring it forward if something comes up.

I bought a second display for my last job because the pan got us wfh. I’m on a Mac and ran my Windows VM o the second display. My current job doesn’t allow me to connect to VPN from a personal device, so the second display is dormant. I throw web browser windows for things I want to look at later over there so I don’t forget to come back to them (I have a billion open web windows / tabs on the main display).

Independent IT Contractor: I have a 4-wide 1080p screen setup. I keep Slack/Teams on one screen, the semicircle setup means I can only really look at 3 at the same time. I upgraded from 3 screens because I kept having to juggle windows around while troubleshooting someone's webserver.

Also used this setup when I was really heavy into FFXIV- I like having wikis/alerts open and visible, so one screen for that, the game, discord, and then the last one was just for youtube/netflix.

A little different, but I do a lot of random 3D printing related stuff on my computer including CAD. I got one of those small ultra wide monitors meant for a raspberry pi, and put it under my main monitor. I run rain meter widgets on it for time, media control, etc. I also throw videos and stuff on there for while I'm working. It's been pretty sweet! I can use solidworks on top, and have a little video working on the bottom, and have a clock easily visible for time management.

I operate a ZLD plant processing blowdown for a combined cycle power plant. I have two computers at my desk. The left computer is for email, data entry, training, and monitoring a few power block and BOP things via PI; this is with two monitors, one above the other. The right computer is for operating the plant directly and monitoring native trends; this is with four monitors, 2x2.

I'd say I don't need more than this, but I would feel some pain if I had fewer. I would love to have another monitor or two to display camera feeds, but my plant never figured out how to get the cameras set up so we just climb ladders to look into sight glass windows once in a while. Or I might be the only one who actually bothers with that lol. Really the 4 monitor rig could and probably should be replaced by a big 4k screen if the software supports windowed instances instead of full screen like we have been running. It wouldn't surprise me if this POS program can't do that though.