Linux is the only OS to support diagonal PC monitor mode

Here's a fun tidbit — Linux is the only OS to support a diagonal monitor mode, which you can customize to any tilt of your liking. Latching onto this possibility, a Linux developer who grew dissatisfied with the extreme choices offered by the cultural norms of landscape or portrait monitor usage is championing diagonal mode computing. Melbourne-based xssfox asserts that the “perfect rotation” for software development is 22° (h/t Daniel Feldman).

Many PC enthusiasts have strong preferences for monitor setups. Some prefer ultrawides and curved screens, and others seek out squarer aspect ratios with flat screens. Multiple monitors are popular among power users, too. But what if you have an ultrawide and find the landscape or portrait choices too extreme? Xssfox was in this very situation and decided to use her nicely adjustable stand and the Linux xrandr (x resize and rotate) tool to try and find the ultimate screen rotation angle for software development purposes, which you can see if you expand the below tweet.

Xssfox devised a consistent method to appraise various screen rotations, working through the staid old landscape and portrait modes, before deploying xrandr to test rotations like the slightly skewed 1° and an indecisive 45°. These produced mixed results of questionable benefits, so the search for the Goldilocks solution continued.

It turns out that a 22° tilt to the left (expand tweet above to see) was the sweet spot for xssfox. This rotation delivered the best working screen space on what looks like a 32:9 aspect ratio monitor from Dell. “So this here, I think, is the best monitor orientation for software development,” the developer commented. “It provides the longest line lengths and no longer need to worry about that pesky 80-column limit.”

If you have a monitor with the same aspect ratio, the 22° angle might work well for you, too. However, people with other non-conventional monitor rotation needs can use xssfox’s javascript calculator to generate the xrandr command for given inputs. People who own the almost perfectly square LG DualUp 28MQ780 might be tempted to try ‘diamond mode,’ for example.

We note that Windows users with AMD and Nvidia drivers are currently shackled to applying screen rotations using 90° steps. MacOS users apparently face the same restrictions.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/rkovDj1