Cinnamon works very well for this. I can put bars all over the place on any monitor.
Does Mint let you do that? I was mildly annoyed about having the "bar" only on one screen, I did some looking around but didn't find anything useful.
Right click bar > 'Add a new panel'
Hey it actually works! But it only gives me an empty one 😅
Yep, then right click it and click applets and add what you need them move the applets to where you want.
Is there some way to mirror the original bar? I'd like access to open folders & softs on both.
Thanks again!
If you mean copy/pasting the bar to the new screen/placement, I'm not sure. I've never gotten it to do anything other than create a new empty bar. When you look through the applets though it shows which ones you are already using and what they do so you can just click the + when you're editing you new bar to add the thing you know you'll want there.
Also, try out Cinnamenu, it's better than stock start menu imo.
So I have a two monitor setup, and I really dislike how gnome only lets you have the bar on the primary screen unless you install a plugin that is very outdated and I cannot get working on the latest version of gnome or use dash to dock, and I am not a fan of the dock style…
I believe both Dash to Panel and V-Shell are capable of resolving this issue in a way that should suit your needs IF you wish to continue using GNOME.
Yes missing mirroring in the KDE Plasma panels is annoying.
But I would just stick with KDE, it may get fixed soon.
To my knowledge, COSMIC desktop mirrors the panels to both screens.
I dont have a DE reccomendation, but for gnome you can use the dash to panel extension for a KDE / Windows like taskbar that will sync pinned items across monitors. The multi monitor sync works pretty well on it.
I believe that XFCE comes with native multiple-monitor support. It sounds like having customizability for both monitors in terms of dock/panel is important, and I'm not completely certain, but XFCE's panels should be completely rearrangeable and separate. They also have decent power in terms of widgets and customizability.
However, KDE and Gnome have more ecosystem features, so if that's important, you might consider that when switching.
Another thing to note is that if you are willing to invest some time, window managers could be the way to go. Most don't have DE features out-of-the-box like KDE, Gnome, or XFCE, so there is a certain ease-of-use gap. But, if you are willing to take the time to get the features you need and learn the environment, window managers work well with multiple monitors. I use AwesomeWM and configure my monitors with ARandR. You can customize your monitors to your heart's content.
I use xfce for as many monitors as I can plug in. It works, though more customization sounds lovely.
Looking forward to trying out AwesomeWM. Thanks for the idea!
The upcoming Cosmic desktop by Pop!_OS has the exact feature you're describing.
I'm really looking forward to having sane functionality without needing a dozen extensions, and still have a couple things I just can't quite reconcile. I tried to like Plasma, but once again, I just can't stand using it for more than a month or two. And I don't have time to get a more basic compositor working the way I want, like I did back in the Fluxbox/Openbox days, especially with how complex things have become.
I really hope System76 and XFCE both hurry up.
That will be awesome
Dash to panel seems to work fine. The only problem i had with gnome on two screens was when they had different scaling.
I have my status bar on both monitors by default on Hyprland.
I'm a big fan of tiling window managers like i3 or awesome (awesome wm). Awesome is the one I use. It's tiling and the entire interface is built from scripts that they encourage you to modify. Steep learning curve but once you get it how you like, there's nothing like it.
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