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Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
Edit: I'm glad so many of you have had no issues with multiple monitors. My set up is a little unusual (3rd display is an infrequently used large tv hooked through the receiver) and is definitely solveable but will take some effort (and honestly, I'd rather spend my spare time outside or with friends, so who knows when I'll fix it.)
My wife was laughing when I showed her this meme.
infrequently used large tv hooked through the receiver
This makes it seem like Linux has a problem with multiple monitors when you just aren't supposed to connect your 80s AV hardware between TV and computer. You should absolutely expect that to either require an active convertor to your obsolete shit AND OR cutting out the intermediary. If you are going to use weird shit its on you to actually understand how it works.
Out of all the people on earth you might literally be singular person anywhere with this setup. Meanwhile everyone else is just plugging in shit and watching it work.
I haven't had trouble getting displays working since 2007.
Look at this guy, running a headless workstation
It's because one of my three is a sporadically used tv that's hooked up through my receiver system. Windows had trouble with it too and in more irritating ways. I just have to sit down and do some work to create a way to easily toggle between 1, 2 and 3 screen layouts/settings etc.
I wound up using a physical switch that toggles a PC display off and toggles on the TV display so the system just slots it in. It only works because I don't really need all three working at once (i.e. I just use the TV output to watch TV).
But yeah, neither windows or Linux handles dynamic display changes very well.
I'd posit Linux is still far superior. Especially with stupid little things, like one of my displays acts like it's fully disconnected when it's powered off at night. Which then tells Windows to disconnect the screen and fuck up all my app positions regardless of wether, "remember window positions based on connected screens" or what ever is set. It takes many seconds for that asshole to reinitialize the whole fucking desktop, always with programs in the wrong fucking place. Every. Time.
Linux doesn't give a fuck, changes desktop layout instantly, doesn't assume where I want my windows, and is by all accounts just far superior. I haven't messed with this fresh install too much to know if there are weird little edge cases I'm not noticing, but so far, Linux is absolutely kicking Microsoft's ass and taking its lunch money (I wish more than figuratively).
Windows had trouble with it too and in more irritating ways.
Honestly, I'm embarrassed how long it took me as a human being to realize that things don't have to be perfect to be better. I would be way harder on any change than I was with the status quo.
Anyway, yes, especially after having more and more issues with Windows 11 in particular, for me and my use case, Linux is genuinely easier to use day-to-day. Is it perfect? No. Is it better? Yes, no contest.
I have a similar use case with my PC and TV. My PC is across the house from the TV and is connected via an HDMI over Ethernet KVM for when I want to use my PC as a gaming console.
What I ended up doing was creating an automation in Home Assistant to turn on my KVM via a smart plug, then wake-on-lan my PC, and intiate a Steam Big Picture mode gamescope session. This was pretty tedious to get working all together, and startup time is pretty abysmal (around 1 minute to get fully into Steam), but it does actually work consistently.
In case anyone is interested in replicating my setup: I'm running NixOS 25.11 with the Jovian flake installed, and launching my session via the systemd service run_gamescope. If you're not on NixOS, you should still be able to build your own solution by emulating the Steam Deck startup services (honestly, it's not that complicated), or looking into projects like ChimeraOS.
Fake!
All those words and none were "Arch".
It was implied? π€π€ͺ
I mean, they joke but inertia is Microsoft's mightest weapon.
Literally just "My computer works now, why would I want to change it?"
Incidentally, getting someone on Linux (or Apple for that matter) to switch to Microsoft is also like pulling teeth.
Also, for many people, they don't actually understand the difference between the device and the OS. You buy a laptop and thats the whole thing, including the OS.
Please leave my teeth, I am perfectly happy with arch.
He uses arch btw
My internal dialogue during social events: dont talk about linux, dont talk about foss, dont talk about rodents.
The design history of the XFCE logo has entered the chat.
I will gladly subscribe to any newsletter about those three things.
I'm another data point where displays work under Linux better than Windows, making this particular example amusingly wrong.
This is a Dell precision laptop with a dual usb-c connected docking station. Intel cpu plus a discrete nvidia gpu.
Using Cinnamon in X11 on Linux Mint or LMDE, works great.
Using KDE Plasma in Wayland on Debian? Works great!
Using Windows 10? Bzzzt.
I think I've had Linux DEs occasionally forget my monitor order & rotation just like Windows would, but out of the box Windows wouldn't even use all my monitors.
I don't think a lived experience can be amusingly wrong but to each their own?
My issue comes because my set up is highly unusual, the third display is an infrequently used tv that's connected through a receiver. With a little bit of fighting I have a workable albeit inconvenient system. A fix is possible but as stated in the meme, it'll take some effort etc.
I assume they mean that the general sense of "Switching to Linux is easy! I'm still fiddling with basic things but any day now..." doesn't reflect their own experience, nor that of many others who had less trouble with displays under Linux.
In that context "I have an unusual setup" is an important note: It's not that Linux struggles with basic things, but that it struggles with some uncommon things that nobody ever built and shipped a proper solution for.
On my Windows laptop, multi displays barely work with any logic at all.
Last time I used macOS it pretended that displays worked fine (but they didn't).
I've not used Linux much in hotplug monitor setups but I assume the situation can't be worse.
My displays work great on Debian
My 3 monitor setup has been really fantastic after switching to Cosmic desktop. Really really loving the mix of tiling and non-tiling features too.
Tangential to OP but just wanted to throw Cosmic out there for folks who haven't yet tried it.
Didn't realize Cosmic went 1.0 in December. How is it? I tried it a few months ago and really liked the tiling features and overall feel, but it was still a bit rough around the edges.
Tbh I have no real complaints. I would eventually like some keyboard shortcuts for moving entire workspaces around without the mouse, but what is there is quite intuitive and I find myself not leaving the keyboard to navigate. The defaults are similar to i3 shortcuts.
I like that they work in tiling and non-tiling mode, and each workspace can be set to either mode at whim.
No issues with stability (which was a problem for me in earlier builds).
I don't use any of the Cosmic utils, though (text editor, terminal, etc). They seem fine but ymmv.
Edit: actually just thought of one thing... If you move a window from a non-tiling workspace to a tiling one, it stays in non-tiling mode. This leads to a mixed mode workspace and I don't like that. But it's easily fixed with mode toggle and only a minor annoyance -- ideally I want it to switch to whatever mode the workspace is in.
I use a rolling release distro (void) and I haven't had to touch my system configuration since I set it up 4 years ago.
My displays are even more stable than Windows now. Wayland allows me to throw around applications to different workspaces and monitors that would have literally crashed if I ALT-TABed on Windows.
Sent this to my normi friends, Iβll keep you up to dateβ¦
Update: they only pointed out that my usage of the expression βamirite?β Is out of date.
lol, getting all displays working is indeed my biggest worry for my last Windows PC, migrating next month. It has both an NVIDIA and a Radeon GPU, and that works great on Windows. But a quick test boot from USB did not go so well on Ubuntu, so the truth will only come out after a real install with drivers.
The trick is to buy linux-approved hardware.
For example, there are specific machines which are approved by ubuntu as officialy working with ubuntu.
Thinkpads are generaly good to use.
Consumer Thinkbooks (Shitbooks) like the 16 G7 IML are NOT at all compatible.
You gotta work your hardware around linux a bit.
Thinkbooks are actually decent (quality-wise), but the ideapads - fuck them, I'm never making that mistake again, I hate typing on practically rocks and having no upgrade path.
Well yea, but that doesn't change that nothing works on linux on thinkbooks... That was my point
The trick is to buy linux-approved hardware.
So have money.
I have two extra monitors, one of them is technically a small low res LCD TV, another is in an elderly monitor that I can only turn on and off by plugging and unplugging it because its power button work's 1 out of 1000 times its pressed. They work, why spend money to replace them, they are just used to monitor temps, music players, and Discord.
Also this flies in the face of sustainability. I'd figure sustainability is also a major motivating factor of Linux, given its association with other progressive tech movements like right to repair. If I have some random jank old hardware, it'd be nice to not have to just throw it away for the sake of switching to Linux. In fact, Linux does save some hardware of course and gives them new life sometimes. I've revived some old laptops before with it.
I say this as a Linux advocate, I use Windows due to current necessity. I also use Linux (Not just on a Steam Deck, but yes on a Steam Deck). I'd stop using Windows entirely but I'd need to be richer or accept significant downgrades. I'm not the former and I wont do the latter.
I get what you are saying but sometimes new is needed. For example at work they wanted me to have new not used... For some reason. (They paid anyway)
If shit is actively broken and you want to keep using it you should actually fuckin fix it. That is sustainable...what you are doing is just lazy and cheap.
They're for my personal use and they serve the purpose I use them for fine with a 2 second inconvenience for one of them. Worth saving the money or so to replace them for the time being, especially if I need uniform monitors to maximally work with Linux without issue. Also it reduces e-waste.
I don't give a fuck about what you think of my character, so the only thing calling me lazy and cheap achieves is just makes me think you're angry for no good reason.
I literally knew a guy like that in Ireland. I swear I don't even know how I knew him, but I just remember him honing in on me to talk about fucking Linux in the pub every time he'd see me. I didn't even use Linux on my own machine! ;_;
But soon...
I don't know why I love that picture so much.
I feel like Iβll always have to make tweaks and itβll never truly end. But I donβt say that in a bad way because I like learning and feel itβs akin to building my computer. Putting each piece together and doing the research into it helps me know better what went wrong when something breaks because I put it all together.
With the OS, because I am learning different parts of it and making all these changes, I learn so much. I have learned so much about package managers and how to use them and their flags in this in distro hopping.
But itβs no different than Windows because many of us were doing things to make the OS work for us and not against us like tweaks to use a local account or disable shit like Copilot in group policy.
Ime over years... I stopped tweaking.
Gnome with dash to dock is basically all I need unless I'm doing something specific.
Even when I was making htpc with KDE I started out customizing everything but eventually would reformat and only use a few minor tweaks. I went for like week long constant tweaking every time I used it to being able to set up an install and a few tweaks in less than an hour.
Actual lol. I try not to be this guy until people bith about win 11 like they have no choice. you do!!