This is probably going to make me sound like a curmudgeon, but:
While most of us are used to this system and its quirks, that doesn’t mean it’s without problems. This is especially apparent when you do user research with people who are new to computing…
I don’t understand this thinking (1), and worse, the workflow described seems like it will just make things more confusing (2).
(1) Most tools humans have developed are not especially intuitive - you usually need someone to teach you at least the basics, and then you need to practice. Consider a driving a car, operating a sewing machine, a microwave… Even something “simple” like a hammer has features that need to be explained (“turn it around, and you can use the claw on the back to remove nails”).
(2) This seems like it just introduces more inconsistency. Right now, a new window opens on top, and you move it and size it however you need. This works for all windows. With the model described, windows sometimes float next to each other (but the arrangement is random), some times tile, and other times will open on a new workspace. And the tiling features get even more confusing - dragging one window over another causes them to tile, but what if I actually just want them to overlap?
I feel like this is just going to annoy anyone used to the current system and still require a learning curve for anyone new to computing.
I’ve used gnome 2 and 3, Unity, KDE 3, 4, and 5, and am on gnome 44 now - I actually think the current world is pretty good. I’d much rather see quarter tiling and gesture customization than a whole new window management paradigm.
Exactly, I don’t get how these people are supposed to be UI UX experts but don’t understand that inconsistent behaviour is a very fast way to confuse and break user trust.
It’s your mom’s fault that “linux is struggling with basic functionality”. I mean it. She raised an illiterate.
As for the answer to why, a quick google search will explain to you that most docking stations do not properly work with Linux because their manufacturers refuse to write linux drivers for them. If your docking station works at all it’s because someone very talented has spent their free time reverse engineering the box and writing a driver.
Now, please, go back to windows, linux will be better off without users that have your attitude.
I’m very confused about your deduction skills. But I confirm, even the arch wiki cannot help with making a docking station work on a random consumer laptop powered by shintel thunderbolt non-standard. It’s an unbelievable rare occasion, but we must admit, the arch wiki has failed their followers here. It cannot be blamed, yet we still mourn.
I’m lying ofc. I’m running 3k displays out of an old Thinkpad. They only need to display terminals and vim, so I don’t care too much about tearing or whatever. I have easily set it up by following this guide: wiki.archlinux.org/title/DisplayLink
Using X? I’m running a dock with triples via USB-C/thunderbolt without issue on Wayland. Maybe I had to briefly configure them but it really wasn’t anything worth remembering.
It sounds like your GFX card driver isn’t correct. Are you just using whatever installed automatically? If you’re using Nvidia then go install X Server and the proper driver for your card. If you’re using AMD then idk, you’ll have to figure that one out.
Not just Windows, but Macs as well; I’ve had three different generations of MacBooks that you could plug a USB-C (thunderbolt) into any dock (Dell, HengeDock, random amazon brand, etc) and they simply worked.
I do feel your pain about multiple monitors; it is even more evident when you try to run some of them rotated and/or flipped.
I’ve not found a solution for it yet, and in some small way, I am glad to hear it’s not just me having these problems.
My MacBook pro wouldn’t work with my ultra wide resolution monitor and it took me hours to figure out how to force it to reveal the proper resolution option. It flat-out won’t work with dual monitors, no M1 CPU MacBook will.
That’s not true, M1 Pro and Max MacBooks both support dual external monitors.
The scaling and lack of available resolution problems is very real though. If you have monitors with a slightly non-standard resolution, you basically need third party software like SwitchResX, which is pretty stupid considering Windows has no problems like this at all.
The 13" MacBook Pro with the M1 processor doesn’t support dual external monitors, I think it is a 2019, but I’m not positive. If you have a solution, then I’d love to hear it. I looked, and my coworkers looked, and we all came to the same conclusion that it’s not supported.
I’ve been using 2 4k monitors with my m1 for years now. Are you specifically referring to usb-c connected displays? I tried that (I think) and it didn’t work. I use a dock that has HDMI and a USBC cable for my two monitors and it works fine for me.
Kind of. USB-C to HDMI. I have a dongle for one HDMI port and that worked okay, but wouldn’t give me the proper resolution, so I bought a USB-C to HDMI cable. That, with a lot of tinkering, got me the proper ultra wide resolution, but I still haven’t been able to get a 2nd monitor working. Everything I read said that the M1 doesn’t support dual monitors. I just checked and it’s a 2020, not a 2019. My previous MacBook Pro was the 2019.
So, you’re saying that you got two external monitors working with a USB-C dock?
I just checked. My M1 MacBook Pro is a 2021 model so maybe that’s why, but here’s what I have working:
1 4k monitor connected by USBC directly
1 4k monitor connected by USBC -> mini displayport cable (I am fairly sure this one used to use HDMI via my USBC dock but apparently I changed that at some point)
Okay thanks for checking. I’m pretty sure the 2020’s just flat out don’t work, but I’ll look into it again. I’ve wanted a second monitor for work many times. Cheers!
Your best bet when it comes to USB-C docks is using a computer with a Thunderbolt 4 port. While I’m not 100 % sure, I think one of the few spec changes comparing Thunderbolt 4 to 3 is that TB4 certification requires two independent DisplayPort streams. If you can then find a Thunderbolt 4 certified Dock with either two independent DisplayPort outputs or even two Thunderbolt outputs (physically USB-C), you can connect your monitors via DP to DP or USB-C to DP. This configuration should work on pretty much any OS as long as Thunderbolt is working properly.
USB 4 or Thunderbolt 3 can support multiple DisplayPort streams, but it’s often hard to find exact specifications on what’s supported with which computer and dock. Many docks have multiple DisplayPort ports, but they are linked via MST (essentially daisy-chaining) so they share a single DisplayPort stream. This tends to work fine under Windows as long as you don’t run into bandwidth limitations, and I think Linux supports it as well, but this might vary by distro. I know macOS does not support MST at all.
Even worse than that, a lot of the cheaper (but also more expensive) multi-display USB-C docks use DisplayLink, a proprietary technology that essentially uses software rendering to output to multiple displays. This requires a proprietary driver to get working, so I’m not sure how well it works under Linux if at all.
Your best bet for Linux is to run Wayland and an up-to-date kernel (we’re currently at 6.9.x) with a well-supported DE like KDE or GNOME.
On Windows, it “just works”. I don’t have to do anything.
It only “just works” if you are using the correct dock and the correct cables. My Surface Pro with Windows 11 refuses to do dual monitors at 4K unless I use the actual Microsoft Adapter cables (USB-C to HDMI) along with the actual Microsoft Dock.
Your problem isn’t that Linux can’t do what you want, it’s that you have to have the correct hardware setup…and so does Windows.
My surface pro just decided one day that all external monitors will only be mirrors of the primary display, and that they will be 800px, not 4k. Nothing I have tried has fixed it. I finally gave up and started using my much older Arch laptop for those purposes.
Dock firmware. If changing the cable did something, chances are the chips on the dock are not working nicely with the OS. It is a hit or a miss for what I’ve researched on it. What you have to know is that a Usb-C cable is only the physical shape of the port, what that port can do depends on ancillary chips implementing the protocols, and the protocol has to be supported on both sides of the connection. So, something on your current driver configuration is not talking with the dock. Maybe try running a newer kernel and see if that helps.
Also, the 30fps lock might be due to X11. I’ve not tried Wayland but this is one of the points the evangelists like to ramble about. Something, something, if both monitors are not equal and connected through the same protocol it doesn’t work, just use Wayland or whatever.
For what is worth, lots of people do complain online about docks not working with Windows and some even stop working after a few months, those things are fickle as hell.
Yeah, if you’re running monitors with two different refresh rates, you’ll have a hard time in X11. I haven’t tried it in Wayland but I’ve heard it’s better.
You think I would have better luck with a distro that uses Wayland? I’m kind of surprised to learn that Wayland isn’t used on Linux Mint as I have read that Linux Mint is the most “it just works” distro out there, but it has not been my experience so far.
Wayland is developed by the same people who created and still maintain X11. It’s been on the works for a decade, but, and it is a big but, it’s still experimental. Sure, feature wise it’s 90% there, but it also creates a lot of incompatibility issues, as applications have to be made with Wayland in mind. There’s Xwayland that is included in most, but not all, deployments of Wayland that run X apps in Wayland, but that has compatibility issues as well. I get a lot of flak for saying this but, Wayland is not yet ready to be the universal replacement for X11, and that is OK, this is not entirely on the Wayland developer’s hands. Adoption of new technology takes a lot of time and it requires all developers on board.
Mint precisely because of their “just get it working” philosophy only provides experimental support for Wayland. As X11 is the mature implementation and no software will malfunction for using it, as they are all virtually designed to work with X. However, if you have the latest version of Mint, Virginia, you already have Wayland available to you. Just choose it on your display manager before login in. But it is marked as experimental because some software might glitch.
Mint is trying to create the most straight forward and easiest experience to the vast majority of people. We might have normalized it in the tech circles, but the vast majority of people don’t use multi monitor setups. The non-tech people who do, usually do it on an enterprise setting where IT deals with the technical details.
Like I said, it has feature parity to about roughly over 90%, but not adoption on the software side. The DE developers are correct that they need to start supporting it as the default, because de-facto we are forced to make it so. X11 is on death row after all. But if it glitches on Wayland but not on X, then to me it is still experimental.
EDIT: BTW for me it is experimental, but also, Mint also calls it experimental, because their support from the Cinnamon DE is experimental.
If the cable made a difference, then that may still be the limiting factor. It’s not totally unheard of for Windows drivers to be a little more fault tolerant or better tuned for suboptimal cable connections. If you aren’t already doing that, try using a certified cable that supports the bandwidth and features you require for your setup. Besides that I guess you could only try the newest kernel version you can reasonably install.
I know, I did read your entire post. As I said, it’s not unheard of for Windows drivers to be more fault tolerant in suboptimal conditions. For example: Windows GPU drivers in the early days of HDMI 2.1 needed a lot of tuning for tiny oltage adjustments to ensure signal integrity if your cable wasn’t exactly up to spec, basically compensating for a “bad” cable, whereas the Linux drivers at the time didn’t really try to do that. This doesn’t have to be the case for you, but it should be relatively easy to test.
You are probably on the right track. Docks have their own limitations on resolution and frequencies, and that might be your chokepoint.
I had a dock for work that only let me do two monitors at 1080 or one at 1440 and the other at 800. They replaced it with a newer dock and now borth are set to 1440.
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