Multiple Monitor Heaven

I thought maybe now would be a good time to explain the setup I have in the office which I am greeted to every morning and attempt to explain it in laymens terms to a degree. For years I had found the benefit of using a multiple monitor setup by plugging in a second screen to the laptop etc and it went from there. The system is now two computers allowing me to move the mouse and keyboard across all 6 screens seamlessly, and here's why and how....

Using multiple monitors on a single computer allows you to drag windows from one monitor to another and reduce the amount of swapping between applications. Take for instance the last customer who took this up, on their accounts system they continuously swap between a spreadsheet and their accounts software, sometimes copying and pasting data. The monitor set-up allows them to view both at the same time and drag and drop easily.  So the more applications used, the more you switch between apps and the less productive time. Then comes entry to the world of window managers and real operating systems and software input switchers.

So my pain points.... I use lots of apps at the same time, database, Vim, Skype, Email, IRC, browsers, terminals etc. I also hate having to reboot (which isn't that often) and wait around for the restart.

The resolution: To cure these issues the screens work across two computers, the left two run off a standard every day HP desktop running Ubuntu 12.04 and AwesomeWM with Synergy client to take the mouse and keyboard input, the right 4 monitors are attached to a bespoke system, couple of 560Ti's, 8 core CPU, 16Gig ram and SSD drive so it's a little nippy. The operating system is the same, Ubuntu 12.04, AwesomeWM and Synergy Server.

update: Fri June 5th - have been using #! for a six months now and found it very stable and the IRC channel is really helpful.

After switching to Linux operating systems I can say without a shadow of a doubt I would never go back to windows, there are way too many bugs, crashes, hangs, excessive slowness. Although the path to Linux and finally the distro's I use on a daily basis, Ubuntu, Arch, Backtrack was not as easy as I imagined, but nontheless still worth it.

AwesomeWM is as the name states, pretty awesome and is the tiling window manager of choice for me. The majority of window operations are completed by using simple keyboard commands and on startup all the applications I use are opened and displayed in their own positions on the screens allocated to them. There are many more benefits of AwesomeWM and far too many to start listing on here.

Synergy shares the mouse and keyboard between the two computers, so with a few simple settings when the mouse is moved to the left edge of the middle screens the mouse and keyboard runs seamlessly on the far left screens, and vice versa when it reaches the right side of the left screens. Or you can also change screens with the keyboard and keep your hands where they are.