4 ms·

Elementary is quite nice on HiDPI until you use apps which need other graphics toolkits...

by my123 10y ago

toyg 10y ago
The Linux world should really get together and bang out a solution for the hiDPI problem that is consistent across X servers and window managers.
- truncate 10y ago
  Most apps I use on Ubuntu work well on hidpi. The main problem I face is when I connect my laptop with 4k screen with some external monitor with 2k or 1080p display.
  - michaelgrafl 10y ago
    A couple of years or so ago, I managed to "solve" this issue in Ubuntu 14.04, if I remember correctly. I somehow figured out how to drive Unity at 162% scaling for my XPS 13 and scale it down to 100% for my external display. There definitely were some artefacts, but it basically worked. I'm sorry to say though, that I don't remember how I did it, since I've been using mainly macOS and Windows for quite some time now.
    - truncate 10y ago
      Did that solution involve using xrandr scaling parameter? unfortunately that's not right solution IMO, as I observed it takes lot of CPU. Hacky and feels laggy. My solution is to organize myself so that I don't have to move windows around. I mostly need browser, terminal and emacs. I open chrome in one monitor with specific scaling option, and when I move emacs or terminal around I manually decrease font size with Ctrl-+/-
  - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
    What issues do you face, because I currently use that exact workflow with a MacbookPro retina, and a 24" dell monitor. Apart from windows not resizing/positioning automatically (so I have to manually re-layout everything whenever I switch from monitor to laptop), I haven't really suffered any problems so am curious to know what issues I'd face if I switched to Ubuntu.
    - vetinari 10y ago
      I did face problem with macOS and having external low-DPI monitor: the Finder would act up sometimes: when you rename file the caret and edited text would be someplace else that the filename shown in Finder and dragging and droping files would stop working. Firefox had similar problems with addressbar and controls in web pages too. All these things disappeared when I changed the external monitor for a HiDPI one.
    - truncate 10y ago
      I use a tiling window manager, so positioning is not a problem. Problem is that, on a my laptop (4k) screen things look normal, but on 2k external screen things look bigger by default. Ideally the GUI toolkit should be able to pick up per screen scaling factor.
- cm3 10y ago
  Not trying to downplay issues or shame another system, but if you compare Linux's HiDPI support to Windows, it doesn't look so bad anymore. For one, it's more likely to find apps that scale on Xorg/Wayland than on Windows, most Microsoft Windows official system apps included. Simple things like apps with list controls that have a huge number of entries where you're not able to resize the window while other more prominent MS apps waste white space like macOS and GNOME is an interesting phenomenon to observe.
- vetinari 10y ago
  The Linux world[1] has got together and is banging out a solution for a somewhat bigger problem that the multitude of X toolkits and their different (non) approach to HiDPI. It's called Wayland, it took some time to make and next week, new Fedora is coming out that uses it by default (until now you could "only" opt-in during login). [1] Except Ubuntu, they have their own NIH solution, of course.
  - makomk 10y ago
    Wayland, the solution where not only does every toolkit have a different and often incomplete approach to HiDPI, they now all have their own implementations of window titlebars and widgets too?
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Toolkits always had their own implementation of widgets, that's not even Linux or X11 specific. The same applies to Windows and macOS: ever noticed that MS Office has different widgets than Photoshop? The only difference is, that Windows and macOS had one or more widget libraries supplied with the system and synced look&feel for them, while there was no canonical widget library or l&f for X11. Title bars are up to compositor (it was up to window manager in X11). Even client side window decorations (i.e. mostly title bar combined with toolbar) are nothing new, if that is what you mean with custom implementation of window titlebars.
- kps 10y ago
  X was designed for multiple DPI from the start; it was the ‘Linux world’ who abandoned everything from the ‘Unix world’ that wasn't immediately relevant to cloning the Windows desktop.

Elementary is quite nice on HiDPI until you use apps which need other graphics toolkits...

by my123 10y ago

Elementary is quite nice on HiDPI until you use apps which need other graphics toolkits...

toyg 10y ago

The Linux world should really get together and bang out a solution for the hiDPI problem that is consistent across X servers and window managers.

truncate 10y ago
Most apps I use on Ubuntu work well on hidpi. The main problem I face is when I connect my laptop with 4k screen with some external monitor with 2k or 1080p display.
- michaelgrafl 10y ago
  A couple of years or so ago, I managed to "solve" this issue in Ubuntu 14.04, if I remember correctly. I somehow figured out how to drive Unity at 162% scaling for my XPS 13 and scale it down to 100% for my external display. There definitely were some artefacts, but it basically worked. I'm sorry to say though, that I don't remember how I did it, since I've been using mainly macOS and Windows for quite some time now.
  - truncate 10y ago
    Did that solution involve using xrandr scaling parameter? unfortunately that's not right solution IMO, as I observed it takes lot of CPU. Hacky and feels laggy. My solution is to organize myself so that I don't have to move windows around. I mostly need browser, terminal and emacs. I open chrome in one monitor with specific scaling option, and when I move emacs or terminal around I manually decrease font size with Ctrl-+/-
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  What issues do you face, because I currently use that exact workflow with a MacbookPro retina, and a 24" dell monitor. Apart from windows not resizing/positioning automatically (so I have to manually re-layout everything whenever I switch from monitor to laptop), I haven't really suffered any problems so am curious to know what issues I'd face if I switched to Ubuntu.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    I did face problem with macOS and having external low-DPI monitor: the Finder would act up sometimes: when you rename file the caret and edited text would be someplace else that the filename shown in Finder and dragging and droping files would stop working. Firefox had similar problems with addressbar and controls in web pages too. All these things disappeared when I changed the external monitor for a HiDPI one.
  - truncate 10y ago
    I use a tiling window manager, so positioning is not a problem. Problem is that, on a my laptop (4k) screen things look normal, but on 2k external screen things look bigger by default. Ideally the GUI toolkit should be able to pick up per screen scaling factor.
cm3 10y ago
Not trying to downplay issues or shame another system, but if you compare Linux's HiDPI support to Windows, it doesn't look so bad anymore. For one, it's more likely to find apps that scale on Xorg/Wayland than on Windows, most Microsoft Windows official system apps included. Simple things like apps with list controls that have a huge number of entries where you're not able to resize the window while other more prominent MS apps waste white space like macOS and GNOME is an interesting phenomenon to observe.
vetinari 10y ago
The Linux world[1] has got together and is banging out a solution for a somewhat bigger problem that the multitude of X toolkits and their different (non) approach to HiDPI. It's called Wayland, it took some time to make and next week, new Fedora is coming out that uses it by default (until now you could "only" opt-in during login). [1] Except Ubuntu, they have their own NIH solution, of course.
- makomk 10y ago
  Wayland, the solution where not only does every toolkit have a different and often incomplete approach to HiDPI, they now all have their own implementations of window titlebars and widgets too?
  - vetinari 10y ago
    Toolkits always had their own implementation of widgets, that's not even Linux or X11 specific. The same applies to Windows and macOS: ever noticed that MS Office has different widgets than Photoshop? The only difference is, that Windows and macOS had one or more widget libraries supplied with the system and synced look&feel for them, while there was no canonical widget library or l&f for X11. Title bars are up to compositor (it was up to window manager in X11). Even client side window decorations (i.e. mostly title bar combined with toolbar) are nothing new, if that is what you mean with custom implementation of window titlebars.
kps 10y ago
X was designed for multiple DPI from the start; it was the ‘Linux world’ who abandoned everything from the ‘Unix world’ that wasn't immediately relevant to cloning the Windows desktop.