How to Use Your Android Tablet as a Second Monitor
blog.8bitbuddhism.com
blog.8bitbuddhism.com
I'm mystified by the enormous gap between the open source solutions and Nomachine, both in the technical and usability areas. The open source solutions are sadly terrible; those who aren't convinced, just try Nomachine.
It's puzzling because solutions like X2Go (which I found to be the most usable) rely on older NX protocol versions (v3 was open), but still, they have terrible performance. This means that in the last 10 years, there has been no virtually development in the open source remote desktop field.
I haven't used NoMachine in like 10 years or so. Back in the days (~15 years ago), I used to run it on UltraSPARC machines running Debian and Gnome. It worked marvelous, even with a FOSS server (FreeNX IIRC). It even worked on the Nokia N-series! Although it sucked to run it on a Mac; you had to run a complete X server, which looked terrible (including the fonts).
You have to manually edit /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh to make xrdp launch a desktop environment when it accepts a connection. If you don't do this, you'll get a blank screen or something non-useful, like a session with just one Xterm window and no desktop environment.
Note that Linux does not support shifting sessions from the local keyboard, mouse & screen to remote access. Further, the major desktop environments don't support simultaneous sessions from the same user.
With any of the remote access tools that don't simply take over the local screen and keyboard, if you have an active session on the physical screen, you won't be able to connect to it remotely, nor will you be able to start a new session remotely under the same login. you'll need to log out from the physical screen before attempting a remote connection.
Finally, Xrdp clipboard sharing does not work with Linux clients.
Only downside is that it doesn’t work with LXC containers, but that’s not a big problem considering only five or so machines need graphics.
EDIT: another downside is lack of client support on iOS. I’d love to work on my iPad with a Magic Keyboard but no client exists that handles SPICE AFAIK.
I have used it to ssh into my Linux machine and have it as my main terminal and documentation viewer machine using synergy, but that is tiresome.
We are also launching a Kickstarter at the end of the month to add Windows support to Luna.
I was just bummed that target display mode was removed in 2012. The last Mac I owned voluntarily had it, and the one I have now just sort of ended up in my hands. Now it is just an amazing display I don't really want to use since I can't run a proper OS on it without ruining the Mac os experience for my wife.
My main issue is, without a stand, they sit on the table and are uncomfortable to use for long periods. The ones I have used are VESA mountable though - so it is a problem with an easy solution.
You can mirror or extend your screen from one Win10 device to another Win10 device on the same network (assuming, of course, that it's not some sort of locked down or public wifi, etc.)
Please correct me if I am wrong, as I've not used this function in probably a year or more.
The only caveat is that both machines have to use Wi-Fi - it doesn't work over LAN at all. And yes, I believe it uses Miracast underneath.
This has to be one of the most baffling statements I've ever read on the internet. What on Earth could the possibly be doing that this is the case?
Edit: Never mind. Another comment says that it's actually a feature of certain Intel WiFi chipsets, so it's not that you have to be using WiFi in general, it's that both devices have to be using specific Intel WiFi chips that support the feature.
They already have remote desktop built in, so it seems like something they could add without a ton of fuss.
"Lenovo working on dual-purpose Android tablet and external monitor, ‘Yoga X’"
https://9to5google.com/2020/07/10/lenovo-yoga-x-android-tabl...
That aside, I struggle to understand why laptop to tablet still requires magic in 2020? Are manufacturers afraid of cannibalizing sales for one line to another?
Ended up not using it after a while because I didn't like the way the phone still gets pretty warm after an hour or two conference (same as DroidCam et al).
The final step is to use a VNC viewer
app on your tablet to open the x11vnc session
I think it's the same with tab management in the browser. I average 4-5 tabs open at a time, never really going above 10. But many of my friends are rolling with 80+ tabs at a time.
Also, sometimes I like to play music videos on youtube while doing other stuff and it would be nice not to have to context switch away from the concert. Really, there are quite a few handy applications for a separate physical display.
I use my phone in a cradle as a second screen but it's not ideal.
Virtual workspaces and multiple monitors are unrelated. The former provides multiple working layers, the latter extends the size of those working layers. Both can be great.
When I'm editing video or photos I can keep the document open and filling the main screen with tools right next door on the second display.
Lots of reasons I like a second screen, mainly so I can see both desktops at once (rather than flipping between them). Its usefulness just depends on your workflow.
I use them all. It's so nice to have my IDE, documentation, 2 terminals, CI status, Slack, music, source control, diffs, etc all visible at once.
Not only is it faster to my move my eyeballs than key combo to another desktop, it's about having all the info visible at once.
Your comment is like saying "Why bother having 16 registers in your CPU? Just use a single register and go out to cache every time you need a new value."
What does it take to run all of that these days? Can you manage with two video cards?
https://multimonitorcomputer.com/index.php is a good resource.
And as a bonus, you're helping to save the planet as you're not burning energy for monitors you're not looking at.
Another bonus is that you don't feel under-equipped anytime you move to a different computer (or a laptop).
By the way, I'm curious: how do you quickly know which screen has keyboard focus without manually scanning all your screens? And how do you quickly switch between windows?
As for the swiping motion and "human vision can only see a little bit at a time", you're right, but I can see motion and changes in things pretty well on the edges.
Further, I find the animation experience of my whole world changing in front of me when I go to a different workspace to be incredibly distracting - enough that I might forget what I'm doing. Turning my head to the right (I tend to work on my left monitor) is a much less mentally confusing experience.
To add to that, right now, I have Hacker News open to the left-most, taking up half the screen, Slack in the center, and then the documentation for a new feature taking up the whole right screen. That means that my docs are a slight turn of the head away, and no distracting animations. When I close this window after completing this message, I'll easily be able to replace Slack and Firefox with my IDE (which will be split down the middle with two documents open concurrently), and I'll be able to go right to work, and my spec sheet will still be to the right of my vision and ready to be developed against.
If the coding gets really, really complicated, I'll be able to easily have 3 windows open, side by side by side, at the width of the window I like (around 120 columns), all in a comfortable range.
I am perfectly capable, also, of picking up my laptop and going off to the couch - I did it last night for a change in scenery - and working from there; but, I prefer the real-estate that a 1440p and a 1080p (of different sizes) next to each other provides me.
What kind of animation does your OS use? For me, on Gnome, the transition is instantaneous (no animation). Switching between workspaces is snappy.
Also, if you change tabs in your browser, then you also have "the whole world changing in front of you". I'm curious what exactly makes a virtual desktop not pleasant to use for you.
There's also to do with the frequency of the action. I don't open new tabs very much; and, when I do, I tend to already be distracted and doing something off-hand, like looking at Reddit. Deep in work, it's far more distracting and would be far, far more regular.
As for relevant operating system:
* OS X
* Linux (Mint, generally)
I setup my screens to associate with what task I have for that screen.
One for my RDP to my workstation I use for Config Manager and Corp Domain tasks, One for Azure and Intune tasks and my laptop screen for web browsing and email tasks.
I'm thinking of getting a third extra screen now for the VM tooling I'm doing. but that might just live on my RDP screen.