I’m looking at getting a dual screen setup and I was wondering if there’s something I should be way off before pressing the purchase button.
What I had on mind was a 4K144hz HDR monitor for my main, and a regular 1440p 60/75Hz for the secondary. I know that linux is quirky and having different resolutions and refresh rates can be prone to problems. Is this config something that I should avoid or is there something I should do on my system beforehand?
- HDR isnt ready yet
- different refresh rates need Wayland
- good luck if you have Nvidia
I’ve been using a triple screen setup for a few years with Nvidia.
Best advice I have is to use xrandr and a script to setup how your screens are positioned, the resolution etc.
xrandr --output DP-5 --mode 3440x1440 --rate 60 --primary
xrandr --output HDMI-0 --left-of DP-5 --rotate right
xrandr --output DP-1 --mode 1920x1080 --above DP-5
xrandr --output DP-3 --mode 1920x1080 --same-as DP-1If you want a heads up on ‘quirks’ you need to spec your hardware.
AFAIK, most quirks are related to laptops.
My dual monitor setup is a dual Acer (K216kU) 4K/144mhz monitors running via display port off a AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT gpu. I run Devuan distro(Debian-systemd) and desktop if xfce4 and I’m using some ‘display’ program.
I can independently hot switch resolution, refresh rate, scaling, mirroring, orientation and a few other things. Basically, so long as the monitor follows the information standard(I forget the jargon), the display program will allow you to make use of it.
Tip, when you buy a GPU, try to get max RAMM and different connections. $xDP was cheeper, woops…
I updated the post with the PC specs, but it’s pretty much a full AMD system (new build since my old i5 6600K and gtx1070, was about time).
On X11 using Nvidia its the lowest fps of the group. On AMD it would use the highest frame rate but I think with tearing on other monitors. VRR doesn’t work on X11 using multi. My own solution since I use XFCE and waiting for wlroots implementation is to use a thin client as a secondary for the other monitors while using KVM. This allows me to take advantage of VRR. I will use ssh terminal commands on the other PC sometimes if I have too much going on.
You’ll need to use wayland since your monitors have different refresh rates. If you have an Nvidia GPU, you may run into some issues. But from my experience (RTX 2070 Super), the only issues I’ve had on wayland are a result of wayland-specific bullshittery, not Nvidia.
I’m on a full AMD build (updated the post with the info).
I’m currently on win10, I will switch to linux during xmas holidays when I have some free time.
Also I have only surface knowledge about wayland and x11, I know that they are window system protocols and that wayland is more modern, can you switch between them like how you do with desktop environments? And it’s worth going for a specific distro to make things easier like garuda or nobara if you are mostly focused on gaming?
Yes, you’re exactly right, they’re different windowing protocols, and yes, wayland is more “modern” in the sense that it’s newer and has a much cleaner codebase. And yes, you can swap between them on the login screen assuming the desktop itself supports both (eg. Gnome and KDE Plasma support both, XFCE only supports Xorg).
I would argue that the problems that come with using a more niche distro like Garuda and Nobara (ie. distro-specific bugs) outweigh the potential gaming benefits they bring. Most of the optimizations they come with are already present in mainstream distros. And if they aren’t, they’re mostly quite easy to install. For example, you can easily install gamemode on Ubuntu with a simple sudo apt install gamemode. You can easily install and configure mangohud with sudo apt install goverlay. The list goes on.