Magnus Åhall

For me is the lack of virtual displays is Wayland.

I’m using a 49" monitor (with i3) and split it into virtual monitors/displays. For some tasks two displays are good, for others three, and all doesn’t need to be the same size.

The reason for not using i3 splits is that many programs have fullscreen functions that I often use.

Watching a movie is one example, where I have a script that automatically calculate the optimal width without borders and gives me an extra virtual display beside with whatever’s left.

I’m also using it to script sessions of workflows with many programs, for instance a dev environment with a lot of microservices. Some windows with multiple panes each.

This kind of reminds of the BlackDog: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackDog

It was a small computer that easily fit in a pocket and only had a single USB port. That was connected to a computer which powered it, and it connected as a virtual CD-ROM drive.

On that was an xming X11 server. The BlackDog ran your applications outputted through it. The applications it ran could also access the Internet through the host computer.

I’m using a 49" monitor and dividing it up in virtual X11 monitors/screens for flexibility. Running a tiling window manager with lots of virtual desktops, but with fullscreen support separate monitors are still needed. Wayland are still missing the support for dividing up the display, which is probably the last thing keeping me on X11.