this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
616 points (98.1% liked)

linuxmemes

26696 readers
963 users here now

Hint: :q!


Sister communities:


Community rules (click to expand)

1. Follow the site-wide rules

2. Be civil
  • Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
  • Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
  • Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
  • Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
  • Bigotry will not be tolerated.
  • 3. Post Linux-related content
  • Including Unix and BSD.
  • Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of sudo in Windows.
  • No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
  • 4. No recent reposts
  • Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
  • 5. πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Language/язык/Sprache
  • This is primarily an English-speaking community. πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§πŸ‡¦πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
  • Comments written in other languages are allowed.
  • The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
  • Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
  • 6. (NEW!) Regarding public figuresWe all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations.
  • Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
  • We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
  • Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed.
  • Β 

    Please report posts and comments that break these rules!


    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.

    founded 2 years ago
    MODERATORS
    top 50 comments
    sorted by: hot top controversial new old
    [–] Zink@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

    I am one of the people that never uses them, and I think I finally realized why: ADHD.

    I usually turn them off, and if there's a part of the GUI dedicated to them, I disable that too. I thought it was to save screen space, but honestly I think it's more so that I won't lose windows to virtual desktops I forgot existed.

    I think the tendency to forget things and to occasionally space out and forget what I'm doing has led me to value persistent visual artifacts of whatever I'm doing. That means a visible taskbar with the clock, system tray icons, and application icons, plus terminal windows even if they are idle. Somehow, scanning back and forth across 4 monitors -- even if virtual desktop people reading this can do it much faster their way -- just works better for me.

    This touches on something that's actually much deeper that I have been doing for myself:

    Sometimes if you do things in a way that plays nicely with your personal neurospice cocktail rather than the more efficient way you "know" that you "should" be doing them, it just makes your life better and that is the whole damn point for why we are working on the computer in the first place.

    I can absolutely see myself buzzing around virtual desktops with keyboard commands. I have experimented with desktop setups in the past. I remember for a while in college I was running some kind of 3D desktop program where I had a virtual space where I could move windows and icons around. You could hang images floating in the air like paintings. And this is on 25 year old hardware! I think my GPU was a Geforce 2 GTS. Giga-texel shader baby!

    I have 3 screens:

    1. Main screen for whatever i'm doing incl Browser
    2. Gaming screen wiith Steam and Heroic Launcher
    3. Comms - Signal, emaiil, discord, everything KDE Connect
    4. random shit not fitting anywere
    5. Piracy town: qbittorent, jdownloader, Browser with MANY sources

    The second one has many many status widgets, Dolphin, fSearch and a Firefox window that's my media player, always in the background without any title bars or borders running the deezer webpage as WPA

    The third one is connected with a 10m HDMI cable and is not running often, is just used to watch movies :-)

    [–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I keep forgetting that virtual desktops are a thing that exists.

    [–] slate@sh.itjust.works 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Why use a virtual desktop when you can simply buy more monitors?

    [–] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

    Facts. Or bigger monitors.

    [–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    because at least on windows, they just don't work well

    shit always opens on the wrong desktop, they're slow and glitchy. it's just a pain

    I just have four monitors

    very infrequently I use virtual desktops for particular things, but too often I need to see the secondary shit while doing the primary and also have a meeting or tertiary info up while accessing chat

    load more comments (5 replies)
    [–] AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

    This post made me look into virtual desktops on my laptop and I can easily double the current amount of desktops from 2-4 under settings.

    Biggest problem with that is that I almost never use more than my first virtual desktop unless I'm working on multiple things and need to switch to not get caught working on one of them over the other.

    How I use virtual desktops:

    I don't. Everything fits on one screen, if it doesn't I close tasks and leave a note to get back to it.

    [–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 93 points 2 days ago (2 children)
    [–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    They're great for work from home, especially when sharing screens. My background and task panel changes when I change desktops, and a script controls which Firefox profile is the default.

    So one VD is work, another is play.

    [–] pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago

    Yep, really only use them at home

    -Native desktop is for random shit

    -"Fun" is for games, and... Fun stuff

    -"Work Shit" is work shit

    -"Bidness" is for home stuff that's not necessarily mindless entertainment. Banking, home projects, etc

    "Schoo" is for college

    Bidness desktop is the only one that's a giant beast. So many windows and tabs, each FF instance is relating to a home project with a ton of tabs, can be car shit, electronics, networking, whatever. So much shit. It's like having too many tabs open but exponentially bad.

    [–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

    I tried using them but in the end it becomes too much of a hassle. I tried doing a work-out work kind of setup with my laptop but it's more cumbersome to maintain than just closing it all

    [–] monogram@feddit.nl 12 points 2 days ago

    Let me fix that for you

    [–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 39 points 2 days ago (2 children)
    [–] enbipanic@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 days ago

    Reminds me of compiz in the old school days. The desktop cube was the (impractical) shit!

    load more comments (1 replies)
    [–] Psythik@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (9 children)

    Does anyone else never use them ever?

    Multi-monitor setups make more sense to me, but I don't even use that anymore after switching to a 65" 4K gaming OLED as my primary monitor. Its like having four 32" 1080p monitors arranged in a grid, except without any bezels. Plenty of screen real estate for anything I need to do.

    [–] splendoruranium 6 points 2 days ago

    Does anyone else never use them ever?

    Indispensable on laptop computers!

    [–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Never used them in my life and I've been machine computing over 25 years. Always one monitor, one desktop. I close shit I dont need regularly, I click on icons on the tab bar to get to the app I need. The tab bar is wide enough to hold like 30+ of them. Why do I need more than one desktop? Windows go over another, the tab bar shows everything I have open. Why switch? I never got it.

    [–] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 9 points 2 days ago

    Tiling WMs are just faster. So much faster. They remove so much annoyance it's really hard to put it to words. Binding programs to workspaces is what finally sealed the deal for me.

    load more comments (4 replies)
    load more comments (7 replies)
    [–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 51 points 2 days ago (24 children)

    I don't "get" virtual desktops. I mean I've tried them out and don't care for them. I'm curious if those who do are using single monitors or low resolution?

    [–] treadful@lemmy.zip 35 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I've got triple monitors and 8-10 virtual desktops full at any given moment. Lots of multitasking. Lots of context switching where I don't necessarily want to close out any windows. Tilling WM.

    Kind of thinking about adding more virtual desktops...

    load more comments (3 replies)
    [–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 2 days ago

    Even with multiple monitors, they are still useful. I use them to separate different tasks so I can switch back and forth with a keyboard shortcut.

    load more comments (22 replies)
    [–] simple@piefed.social 49 points 2 days ago

    Desktop 1: The things I'm supposed to be doing

    Desktop 2: The things I'm supposed to be doing but I forgot I'm not on desktop 1

    Desktop 3: The secondary things I'm supposed to be doing but I forgot these windows were already open on desktop 1

    [–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 6 points 2 days ago

    Tabs for nerds

    [–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Desktop 1 for regular stuff.

    Desktop 2 for porn.

    [–] ignotum@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Desktop 1 for porn

    Desktop 2 for porn also

    [–] abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Four monitors, all with porn on it.

    Desktop one for straight porn, desktop two for gay porn, desktop three for lesbian porn, desktop four for yiff.

    [–] tal@lemmy.today 9 points 2 days ago

    The real work came up from setting up sound streams from all of these to be fed through an HRTF LADSPA plugin to make sound from a given source sound like it was appropriately-located relative to its position on the grid.

    load more comments (2 replies)
    load more comments (3 replies)
    [–] olafurp@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    I have mine as

    1. Fronted
    2. Backend
    3. Database
    4. Browser
    5. Music
    6. Project management
    7. Messaging/Email

    All bound to Meta+h/j/k/l/y/u/i and have a bash function to run and configured to go to the right places. KDE is good

    load more comments (5 replies)
    [–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    Desktop 7 needs to pull themselves by the bootstraps and get a job. Useless.

    [–] TerraRoot@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago

    I have attention dilly dally, so virtual desktops are a huge help to stay on one task at a time.

    Desktop 1: The things I need to do (applying for jobs) Desktop 2: The other things I should do (building relevant career skills) Desktop 3: The things I actually do (random hobbies & volunteer work) Desktop 4: I have no fucking clue, maybe reddit?

    [–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Awesome WM so independent "workspaces" per monitor.

    Central monitor:

    1. browser for searches, gitlab, articles, lemmy
    2. IDE
    3. maybe another IDE
    4. some other term...
    5. signal
    6. spotify ... goes up to 8

    Side monitor:

    1. browser with email/communicators/discord/docs
    2. runtime so cargo, node, actual app running
    3. additional term
    4. additional term... ... goes up to 8

    Laptop: Just one workspace with terminal

    load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] sircac@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    I got a 3x3 grid and now I swim accross them so naturally, visually and intuitively that I cannot stand anything else, 1 for spotify/system properties, 2 for firefox, 3 for thunderbird, the rest thematic for ocassional folder and dedicated programs, any one (two for diagonals) shortcut away from any other (win_key+arrows, with ctrl and shift combinations for window movement/fitting)... I will never comply back to anything else

    [–] brisk@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

    I have this set up and recently transitioned to using the numpad to jump to desktops so it's always one move

    I use Super Key + A and S instead of the arrow keys to be able to do it with one hand.

    [–] 17lifers@sopuli.xyz 14 points 2 days ago

    desktop 1 for what i should do, desktop 2 for the rest. when the door opens switch to desktop 1 lightning fast

    [–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

    shit dude, I've got more than 4.

    1. comms(chat/email/tickets)
    2. remote desktop access
    3. terminal/editor
    4. primary local development browser/console
    5. primary research/notes/documentation
    6. project 2 research/notes
    7. project 3 research/notes
    8. project 4 research/notes
    9. infrastructure migration project lead by PM
    10. browser for stupid shit/music
    [–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    I don't even remember them. And KDE also has this activity whatever thingy that I don't know what the hell it does.

    [–] Lightfire228@pawb.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Activities let you change the desktop layout, panels, wallpapers, etc.

    Virtual desktops keep the desktop settings

    [–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    Thank you, but why? Why do I do that? It sounds like a whole separate desktop session then?

    [–] Lightfire228@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    It can be useful if you want a different desktop layout for different use cases

    I set up a Personal activity, and a Work activity, with different backgrounds and different apps pinned to the taskbar. That helps maintain a "virtual" separation of work and personal life, and helps me not screw off on discord as much

    Well, it would if i actually used it

    [–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

    Now I know what it is for. Thank you.

    load more comments
    view more: next β€Ί