Got a question for the linuxers.

I'm a linuxer myself (no shit) but I don't really tweak a lot. Whenever I see those awesome arch setups with tiling wm's etc (https://devrant.com/rants/1902395/ for example), I would love to set that up myself but one thing:

Any idea on how I'd be able to run this well with 6 screens? I've got genuinely no clue.

I mostly have experience with i3, and it just works really. You have 10 workspaces on every display and you can move windows about very rapidly indeed, set programs to launch on a chosen monitor all the time or restrict it to have 10 workspaces with specific workspaces for specific displays (I prefer the latter). Works really well

@epse Would this work on a debian based machine as well? I'm not an arch person 😅

I would recommend installing lxrandr to configure resolutions and the like in i3, as it isn't a de and doesn't have a settings thing for that

@linuxxx absolutely it would! Even on bsd if you so desire. Its just a package. Only difference being that there isn't a debian package for the i3 fork with gaps, so you'd have to compile it

@epse any idea on how I'd handle moving between those 6 monitors and also have multiple virtual desktops?

One of the main attractions to i3 is multiscreen support. Normally you bind a workstation to a screen and it's pretty simple to move workspaces around without having to move individual windows

@linuxxx yes I would honestly recommend editing the config file to choose which workspaces display where, the config file is automatically generated and using lxrandr or the randr cli if you know it you can get names of your outputs.
Then in the config file go to the section where the workspaces are defined and add to the end of each line "output <outputname>"

You can also have more than 10 workspaces, 10 is just the default because there are 10 number keys for shortcuts.

@PerfectAsshole @epse Does any of you have links to good resources?

@linuxxx for ricing or just general setting up i3? I3 has a phenomenal user guide and the arch wiki is great as well even when you use another system. For ricing I'd recommend just looking a people's dotfiles on github, if you scroll for example through r/unixporn you'll probably find sth nice

Hi linuxxx, ricochet? :)

@linuxxx https://i3wm.org/docs/...

@404response Bootstrapping ;)

https://reddit.com/r/unixporn
You're welcome

and more specifically addressing your question : some tiling WMs definitely handle multiple monitor setups better than others. xmonad is the only one that a I've tried which I would seriously consider if regularly using multiple monitors.

tiling wms handle the interaction between multiple screens and multiple virtual desktops a little different than non tiling ones:
When switching virtual desktops you won't switch the virtual desktop for every physical screen, instead every physical screen has its own set of virtual desktops (which are numbered globally)
An example (with 2 physical screens A and B):
You'll start like this A1, B2 (screen a displays virtual 1 and screen b displays virtual 2).
When your currently on screen A and then switch to virtual desktop 2, your mouse will move over to screen B.
If you then switch to a new virtual desktop 3, this is the result: A1, B3 (screen A continues to display virtual 1 while B displays the new virtual 3)
I hope this explanation is clear enough.
This is actually quite nice for multi monitor setups, because you can controll what each monitor displays individually.

.

Although I'm on i3, I liked Awesome WM's way of handling multiple monitors the most so far: On i3, a workspace is more or less bound to a monitor, either fixed via config or semi-dynamic based on where it was shown when windows were added. With Awesome, moving workspaces from one monitor to anotger is a bit easier, and you can even have the same workspace on multiple monitors.

Not sure how other tiling WMs handle multiple monitors, because I either tested them with a single screen or just cannot remember.

Also, if you want to dive into configuring all your stuff, I'd recommend to get a config file templater. It's a bit more work in the beginning, but changing little things and having multiple configurations around gets a lot easier. Personally, I use zenbu, but I'm sure there are other (potentially better) solutions around.

I3 can do basically anything.. I can help you with the setup.

📌 I'm curious about this myself

what i do, for my 2nd monitor is:
xrandr --output HDMI3 --auto --right-of eDP1
where HDMI3 is my external display, eDP1 is internal.
restart i3 and it will copy the wallpaper on the second monitor itself and ur ready to rock and roll.
just create a tiny script for ur 6 monitors and it will work just fine 😎

I use the startx command with .xinitrc for all my configuration needs, such as setting hte background wallpaper with feh, swapping screens around, etc.