My Mac Studio at work supports 2 monitors.
And they're paned.

Mac Mini, and make sure to get 16Gb RAM. Been running one (now on my 2nd) since 2014. No issues. Have run dual monitors the entire time. The latest spec one is actually pretty good. You can add 8Gb of RAM to the lower spec model to get 16Gb in the options, and it’s $999. Or pony up for the more powerful one with 16Gb of RAM for $1299. You get more ports with the $1299 version as well.

Mac’s laptops and desktops are outrageous in price IMO, to me insane. I’ve run the Mini + IPad Pro combo for 10 years. It was 2014, and I had bought a new Dell Desktop in 2013. In just a year, Windoze updates fucked that thing up and I had to reformat it, reinstall OS and that was it. I used to build them back in the day and I’m just long past tired of dealing with Microsoft and their bullshit. So for 10 years now, I’ve had zero computer issues to troubleshoot and fuck with. I only bought a new Mini when my 2012 model became obsolete for their latest OS. I’m going to buy another one in the next few months as I need a 2nd station set up at home for work. The rumors are a M3 Mini may be out by the end of this year. https://www.macworld.com/artic...-release-rumors.html

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
My Mac Studio at work supports 2 monitors.
And they're paned.

Please explain "paned." Does the space between monitors disappear or does it occlude?

+------+ +------+
|   1  | |   2  |
+------+ +------+

Does an app window that spans monitor 1 & 2 "jump" the gap between them (is "split") or is the middle part of the app. window hidden behind the gap?

If the latter, how is this configured? The monitor arrangement mechanism in System Settings... -> Displays -> Arrange only supports the former.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Mac Mini, and make sure to get 16Gb RAM. Been running one (now on my 2nd) since 2014. No issues. Have run dual monitors the entire time. The latest spec one is actually pretty good. You can add 8Gb of RAM to the lower spec model to get 16Gb in the options, and it’s $999. Or pony up for the more powerful one with 16Gb of RAM for $1299. You get more ports with the $1299 version as well.

Mac’s laptops and desktops are outrageous in price IMO, to me insane. I’ve run the Mini + IPad Pro combo for 10 years. It was 2014, and I had bought a new Dell Desktop in 2013. In just a year, Windoze updates fucked that thing up and I had to reformat it, reinstall OS and that was it. I used to build them back in the day and I’m just long past tired of dealing with Microsoft and their bullshit. So for 10 years now, I’ve had zero computer issues to troubleshoot and fuck with. I only bought a new Mini when my 2012 model became obsolete for their latest OS. I’m going to buy another one in the next few months as I need a 2nd station set up at home for work. The rumors are a M3 Mini may be out by the end of this year. https://www.macworld.com/artic...-release-rumors.html

Yeah. I’m debating on getting the mini with the M2 Pro. I may just wait until the next Apple event but I think it may just be about iPhone 16.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

Yeah. I’m debating on getting the mini with the M2 Pro. I may just wait until the next Apple event but I think it may just be about iPhone 16.

I don’t have to have one until mid November so I’m going to do my best and wait. But IIRC the M2 Mini came out Q4 of last year so getting an upgrade this quick, well I won’t be surprised if they hold off. I’ll likewise wait for the next Apple bs event and decide then. If they do release the M3 version I may buy a M2 anyways if they are cutting deals to move remaining inventory. The current one is more than enough. I went over what I needed it for with a guy that works at Apple (not a store, higher level dude at corporate) as I was prepared to buy the Studio. He said it would be overkill and the M2 will be more than enough. It’s a pretty solid machine for the money. Way better bang for the buck than their laptops.

If i get the iMac, i get a display and webcam and speakers. This will help with remote guitar lessons. It’s been working with the iPhone but it’s hard to hear the teacher sometimes.

A lot of this is overkill for me. All my work stuff is now web based and all I’ll need is to connect an audio interface for recording.

As long as the printer works with the Mac. I’m completely set on the work end.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:

I wiped the drive and installed Linux on it instead. Which is what MacOS is, under the fancy covers.

Not quite the same. MacOS is built on Sun's BSD UNIX, not Linux.

Both UNIX and Linux are POSIX compliant, so they're mostly work-alikes, but the internal code is different.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
I wiped the drive and installed Linux on it instead. Which is what MacOS is, under the fancy covers.

Not quite the same. MacOS is built on Sun's BSD UNIX, not Linux.

Not exactly, macOS is basically built on FreeBSD 4.0, with many aspects stripped out, and lots of stuff dating back to the "Mac toaster" days added in for backwards compatibility (like APFS rather than a more recently-designed file system). FreeBSD is, of course, based on Berkeley Unix ver. 4.3 adapted to Intel architecture chips and later expanded to many other architectures including Motorola, SPARC (inc. OpenIndiana, illumos, etc.), and ARM, the latter of which probably represents the most active current development efforts. Of course, "Apple Silicon" (the "M" series of chips) is an implementation of ARM. SunOS/Solaris also adopted much of BSD 4.2, and 4.3 in later releases, but most of classic Solaris is based on SysV Unix. Note that "Unix" is a trademark (currently owned by Oracle Inc.) and one must pay a royalty to use it.

While FreeBSD has borrowed a fair amount of code from Linux, the reverse is also true. However, they are far different when you get down into the nuts and bolts. Posix is merely what users and processes "see" of the OS, how it is implemented in code is not specified.

FreeBSD will install and run natively on most Apple systems going back before Intel CPUs. In fact, the FreeBSD hypervisor (bhyve) supports running macOS VM guests on hardware that is running FreeBSD as its host OS (only on Apple hardware due to licensing restrictions).

Mark, if my understanding is that you have on your network a TrueNAS machine (TrueNAS is based on FreeBSD), you might want to explore the possibility of running a macOS VM on that box.

Just find a chipset that is listed as either Pro, Max, or Ultra and you'll have no problem running multiple monitors.

If you get ANY M-series Mac, I will ship you a DisplayLink docking station that will display multiple monitors, not mirrored. We use them in our company and I probably have 200 people using them. My Karma to you. Just email me if you're interested.

It's pretty nice to have one cable for power, ethernet, monitors, etc.

EDIT - If it's an iMac or Mac Mini, it probably won't work to pass off power. Heh.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I’m just weary from driver issues that no one can fix. My windows laptop runs fine and lets me install divers but the desktop just has weird randomness. Could be Intel vs AMD.

Here's what I do for driver updates. I use CCleaner. It's the PCTools of old (not that I know there's a direct connection but it's what I use.)

Besides it updating drivers which you can roll back, it also updates software along with uninstall and repair. I know the later two are built in Windows already.

It also cleans out cache and other storage trash but not aggressive.

CCleaner is the number-one tool for optimizing your PC

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Here's what I do for driver updates. I use CCleaner. It's the PCTools of old (not that I know there's a direct connection but it's what I use.)

Besides it updating drivers which you can roll back, it also updates software along with uninstall and repair. I know the later two are built in Windows already.

It also cleans out cache and other storage trash but not aggressive.

CCleaner is the number-one tool for optimizing your PC

Is it available for Linux?

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
My Mac Studio at work supports 2 monitors.
And they're paned.

Please explain "paned." Does the space between monitors disappear or does it occlude?

+------+ +------+
|   1  | |   2  |
+------+ +------+

Does an app window that spans monitor 1 & 2 "jump" the gap between them (is "split") or is the middle part of the app. window hidden behind the gap?

If the latter, how is this configured? The monitor arrangement mechanism in System Settings... -> Displays -> Arrange only supports the former.

what you're after isn't typical for an individual user, it's something digital signage does use, in this case it'd be pushing a single signal to multiple physical displays which the system recognizes as a single digital display. but what is your use case?

Whatever you buy, Mark, be sure to get at least 1 TB SSD internal hard drive. Because of the way the Apple M chips handle memory, a lot of RAM is not as necessary. But Apple builds their machines so post-market upgrade is almost impossible.

I can confirm the Mac Mini does multiple discrete outputs. We put one in earlier this year at my church to run the graphics/slides. It is running 2 separate outputs with no issues. The main monitor on the desk, an output to a projector (with a switcher inline) and the third to a 'confidence monitor' for vocalists. This is accomplished with one HDMI cable and two USB-C to HDMI cables.

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
I can confirm the Mac Mini does multiple discrete outputs. We put one in earlier this year at my church to run the graphics/slides. It is running 2 separate outputs with no issues. The main monitor on the desk, an output to a projector (with a switcher inline) and the third to a 'confidence monitor' for vocalists. This is accomplished with one HDMI cable and two USB-C to HDMI cables.

Thanks. I’m probably going to get the one with the M2 Pro.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
My Mac Studio at work supports 2 monitors.
And they're paned.

Please explain "paned." Does the space between monitors disappear or does it occlude?

+------+ +------+
|   1  | |   2  |
+------+ +------+

Does an app window that spans monitor 1 & 2 "jump" the gap between them (is "split") or is the middle part of the app. window hidden behind the gap?

If the latter, how is this configured? The monitor arrangement mechanism in System Settings... -> Displays -> Arrange only supports the former.

It sees them as a single monitor.
Makes one big desktop.