Dual Monitor quirks with Bazzite
I'm having some growing pains with Bazzite and my 2 monitors. I'm used to Windows making the taskbar be on the primary display or have it on both. In Bazzite I'm finding that the taskbar goes on the non-primary monitor. Is this common/designed as intended?
To add to this I'm also routinely disable 1 monitor when I stream. For context I have a Elgato HD60X plugged into 1 of the monitors (Monitor 1) , I disable monitor 1 when I stream so I can lock everything to monitor 2 so if I need to open anything it will always open on monitor 2, when I disable monitor 1 in Bazzite the taskbar disappears entirely, doesn't matter which monitor was primary it will just disappear. When I re-enable monitor 1 it does go back to where it was but I find it weird. Is there something I can run to refresh/restart the UI to enable the taskbar?
Solution:Jump to solution
Got it. Honestly I like KDE, it's highly customizable which is a blessing and a curse.
There is not really a concept of a "primary" task bar. You customize each task bar on each screen individually. My guess is that when you disable a monitor, KDE goes "oh, new setup configuration, let me reset myself to nothing". So, if you add a task bar to your monitor where it is missing, it should remember you settings for each monitor state.
There are a whole host of customization you can do on the taskbars in KDE, but it does take a bit of fiddling to make it work how you want....
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Which desktop enviorment are you in? KDE Plasma? If so, I likely help as I recently worked though similar quirks.
So far I've only tried KDE but happy to try it on gnome if you think it would help diagnosis
Solution
Got it. Honestly I like KDE, it's highly customizable which is a blessing and a curse.
There is not really a concept of a "primary" task bar. You customize each task bar on each screen individually. My guess is that when you disable a monitor, KDE goes "oh, new setup configuration, let me reset myself to nothing". So, if you add a task bar to your monitor where it is missing, it should remember you settings for each monitor state.
There are a whole host of customization you can do on the taskbars in KDE, but it does take a bit of fiddling to make it work how you want.
Actually you can move the task bar to any monitor, there's a way to drag existing ones between monitors but I'm not on my system so I forget how to do it.
If you want you can duplicate the task bar or make new ones and fill your whole desktop
So this is more a case of moving the existing one to the desired monitor
If you give me like ~20 minutes I can walk you through it
Or more or less just grab a video of me swapping my taskbar between monitors
The only caveat to multiple panels or moving them is the first panel created gets notifications
That's the general feeling I'm getting with Linux as a whole. With great customisation comes great headache getting there. I'll have a dive into the settings menu a bit more to see if I can find the options you're referring to.
Kind of want fill my screen with task bars just for a lol
It's so tempting
Yeah I'm down for a coaching session if you're offering. I'm based in Adelaide, Australia (+9:30) so depending on location might be tricky.
I actually just switched to gnome. So my advice is now invalid. XD
But I can get a live CD probably around lunchtime setup and do a fast screen recording of me adding a panel, removing one, and moving one to another monitor.
Ah yes a wonderful fact. Ctrl+alt+s in KDE (and gnome if you change it from printscreen) gives you an interactive screenshot tool like windows. Except OURS can also record video. In gnome you can't configure too much about the video portion that I can tell, but in KDE you can choose webm, webp animated, or gif
It's a very basic recorder so don't use it for games unless you want a pixelated mess, but it's good for desktop example recordings.
I'm not in a hurry to get this all done so don't stress too much. I've got a main install of windows running until I get my tweaks done on Bazzite then I'm giving it a 30 day trial run to see how it fairs with my lifestyle. It's running on an older 120gb SSD to get the feel and I can nuke it if I break/kill it
Yeah lol it's why I have OBS and discord. Boosted my server to have 720p 60 for game streams between friends
OH if you run into trouble with it in discord I believe you have to share a window in particular for audio? I rarely screenshare. I know vesktop and equibop handily have it covered.
Because discord barely cares about windows users much less us, sadly. Usually works but if they'd fix its quirks I'd stop pouting at them
Man as soon as there is a good competitor I'm gonna drop it like skype
Update: I have now created a taskbar on both monitors and they now remain on both regardless if I disable either monitor. Thank you @FinnFann and @MagicalAttackGecko for helping a linux beginner