7 ms·

Here's another source. https://liliputing.com/2017/01/kde-slimbook-linux-powered-laptop-780.html https://liliputing.com/2017/01/kde-slimbook-linux-powered-la...

by asciimo 10y ago

Here's another source. https://liliputing.com/2017/01/kde-slimbook-linux-powered-laptop-780.html https://liliputing.com/2017/01/kde-slimbook-linux-powered-la... the i7 upgrade with 16mb looks good, though I'd prefer better screen resolution.

pavanky 10y ago
Not sure if that's a typo in the post but 6,800 mAH for a laptop is tiny. EDIT: Nevermind, I was thinking of WHr. If it is using a 12V adapter, that is plenty.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  That's about what it is in my mid 2014 13" rMBP and I regularly get 8 hours coding on it.
  - kogepathic 10y ago
    The appropriate measure of capacity would be watt-hours, not milliamp hours. IIRC the MacBook Pro has a 3 cell battery, meaning that you'll get around ~76Wh from the battery (11.2V * 6800mAh). It's not safe to assume that all laptops will have a 3 cell battery. They might have chosen to install a 2 cell battery, in which case the capacity would only be ~50Wh (7.4V * 6800mAh). That's 35% less capacity!
    - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
      True. But is anyone shipping laptop with a Voltage that low? I see them up around 10.8 - 11.1.
      - kogepathic 10y ago
        I don't know about laptops, but I would expect a lot of these "2 in 1" devices to ship with a 1 or 2 cell battery. Tablets frequently have lower voltage batteries. The iPad 4 for example has 3 cells but they're all in parallel, so the voltage is only 4.2V. For laptops the sweet spot seems to be 3 cells, and I'm not entirely sure why, apart from higher voltages requiring smaller traces/wires. Maybe due to the LCD backlight? The LCD from the iPad 4 actually requires ~12V for the backlight, so there's a buck boost converter somewhere on the iPad logic board for this.
  - pavanky 10y ago
    Ah shit I was thinking of WHr which is different.
distances 10y ago
To be honest with Linux I'd still go with 1920x1080, since that's still usable as a native resolution if the UI scaling for HD screens isn't being applied for one reason or the other.
- hedora 10y ago
  Really? Linux was ready for high DPI screens well before windows. I didn't compare to MacOS back in the early '00s, but (at least for what I use), it may have also beaten MacOS to the punch. Concretely, I used an old > 1600x1200 21" CRT with Linux starting during the dot com crash, and was bummed when it died and I had to switch to low DPI flat panels.
  - azinman2 10y ago
    It doesn't do it well. It's inconsistently applied, many icons/apps incorrectly render, and you have to be consistent in your DE. Much like windows, even windows 10. Somehow, Apple is the only one to have actually solved this well where it just works, and apps that don't support it scale appropriately.
    - OhSoHumble 10y ago
      I run Antergos on a Macbook Pro with a HiDPI screen - with a custom compiled kernel. Things work really, really well... until I plug it into a monitor. Linux can't really deal with one screen being high resolution and another screen being 'low' resolution. Icons distort into different sizes and what not. Chrome's window decorations blow up to humongous sizes, etc. Unplugging it and having the screen readjust leaves things pretty broken. It is easier to run the Macbook screen at 1920x1080 just to not have to deal with scaling issues.
      - mixedCase 10y ago
        Per monitor scaling is supported by, at least, GNOME when you use Wayland.
  - 10y ago
zumu 10y ago
I am running linux on a 1440p laptop, and I will say the scaling is less than ideal. Works well for just the 1 screen. But unfortunately carries over to my external monitors (1080p) as well. I wind up downscaling to 1080p when I'm docked.
- chris11 10y ago
  Does Windows handle multiple monitors with different resolutions well? I haven't really tried it before.
  - netsharc 10y ago
    It does, if you say "expand desktop" instead of "duplicate". Obviously. Depending on how you lay the screens out there can obviously be regions that are off-screen, that would confuse an app or two (e.g. imagine a 9-digit phone keypad, one display occupying regions 1 and 2, another regions 5 and 6. An app might think to start with its top edge at the off-screen region 4, and its bottom half in region 1, requiring one to hit Alt-Space, M, to lock the window titlebar to the mouse.
  - AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
    FWIW, I've had a hell of a time dealing with a Surface Pro 4 and multiple monitors. The problem is scaling. The SP4 has a 3200x1800 resolution internal screen, and is quite hard to read with that resolution on a 13" screen. So, Microsoft suggests you turn up the resolution scaling in your display options and scale to 200 or 300%. Now the main SP4 screen looks okay, but if you try plugging it into external 20" or larger monitors, those are going to look atrocious. So then you might decide to use just the external monitors, and scale it back to 100%. That works pretty well, but Windows forces you to restart (or "Sign Out" and back in, which will close all of your programs and stuff you were working on) every time you change that scaling option. Great! Everything looks fine...until you disconnect the Surface from its dock. Now it's back to looking tiny, and to make use of the SP4 internal screen I've got to once again change the scaling, restart, etc. People at work ask me why I'm always swearing whenever I come into board meetings. It's because I've just detached my SP4 to bring it into the meeting, and I've either got to drop everything I'm doing to restart and be able to use it during the meeting, or keep the 100% scaling to avoid restarting and squint at my SP4's screen during the meeting.
AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
Linux isn't really there yet. On my 3200x1800 XPS13 running Fedora, it took quite a bit of tweaking to get a usable desktop. My DE, Cinnamon, eventually looked okay once I tweaked the scaling (worked about as well as GNOME), but I still have to deal with a plethora of apps that are microscopic. I don't use KDE, but I've been told Qt apps are supposed to scale better on HiDPI.
- brennen 10y ago
  > Linux isn't really there yet. It really isn't, quite. I'm using a brand new Dell XPS 13 with the way-too-many-pixels option, and there are a lot of things that have to be tweaked, particularly if you're not running a mainstream desktop environment. Even with tweaks in place, there're places where proportions are off and/or UI elements are way too tiny. I expect that things will improve within the working lifetime of this laptop, but it's definitely a problem at the moment. I'd happily donate money to some kind of Linux Dealing With Too Many Pixels Initiative, if someone were going to put together an effort at putting developer time into all the miscellaneous issues and getting fixes into distros / applications / desktops / etc.
  - erstorreyk 10y ago
    Have you had any problems with your new XPS' keyboard? Mine lags and sometimes doesn't register keypresses on around the D key.
    - CodeWriter23 10y ago
      Just a guess from someone who doesn't have an XPS but has experienced similar symptoms. Maybe there's some kind of debris or perhaps liquid in between the switch contacts for those keys. In my case, two plastic sheets comprised the contact surfaces and getting them separated and cleaning them with a damp cloth and drying them did the trick.
    - I_am_tiberius 10y ago
      I have an XPS13 1080p 9350. The keyboard actually works fine but it is the only weakness of the laptop in my opinion. I don't have any keys that cause problems but the quality of the arrow keys on that laptop is really bad - one reason why I switched to vim keybindings by taking advantage of the TAB key. In terms of keytravel Lenovo laptops and Macbooks <2016 are much better.

by asciimo 10y ago

pavanky 10y ago

Not sure if that's a typo in the post but 6,800 mAH for a laptop is tiny. EDIT: Nevermind, I was thinking of WHr. If it is using a 12V adapter, that is plenty.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
That's about what it is in my mid 2014 13" rMBP and I regularly get 8 hours coding on it.
- kogepathic 10y ago
  The appropriate measure of capacity would be watt-hours, not milliamp hours. IIRC the MacBook Pro has a 3 cell battery, meaning that you'll get around ~76Wh from the battery (11.2V * 6800mAh). It's not safe to assume that all laptops will have a 3 cell battery. They might have chosen to install a 2 cell battery, in which case the capacity would only be ~50Wh (7.4V * 6800mAh). That's 35% less capacity!
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    True. But is anyone shipping laptop with a Voltage that low? I see them up around 10.8 - 11.1.
    - kogepathic 10y ago
      I don't know about laptops, but I would expect a lot of these "2 in 1" devices to ship with a 1 or 2 cell battery. Tablets frequently have lower voltage batteries. The iPad 4 for example has 3 cells but they're all in parallel, so the voltage is only 4.2V. For laptops the sweet spot seems to be 3 cells, and I'm not entirely sure why, apart from higher voltages requiring smaller traces/wires. Maybe due to the LCD backlight? The LCD from the iPad 4 actually requires ~12V for the backlight, so there's a buck boost converter somewhere on the iPad logic board for this.
- pavanky 10y ago
  Ah shit I was thinking of WHr which is different.

distances 10y ago

To be honest with Linux I'd still go with 1920x1080, since that's still usable as a native resolution if the UI scaling for HD screens isn't being applied for one reason or the other.

hedora 10y ago
Really? Linux was ready for high DPI screens well before windows. I didn't compare to MacOS back in the early '00s, but (at least for what I use), it may have also beaten MacOS to the punch. Concretely, I used an old > 1600x1200 21" CRT with Linux starting during the dot com crash, and was bummed when it died and I had to switch to low DPI flat panels.
- azinman2 10y ago
  It doesn't do it well. It's inconsistently applied, many icons/apps incorrectly render, and you have to be consistent in your DE. Much like windows, even windows 10. Somehow, Apple is the only one to have actually solved this well where it just works, and apps that don't support it scale appropriately.
  - OhSoHumble 10y ago
    I run Antergos on a Macbook Pro with a HiDPI screen - with a custom compiled kernel. Things work really, really well... until I plug it into a monitor. Linux can't really deal with one screen being high resolution and another screen being 'low' resolution. Icons distort into different sizes and what not. Chrome's window decorations blow up to humongous sizes, etc. Unplugging it and having the screen readjust leaves things pretty broken. It is easier to run the Macbook screen at 1920x1080 just to not have to deal with scaling issues.
    - mixedCase 10y ago
      Per monitor scaling is supported by, at least, GNOME when you use Wayland.
- 10y ago

zumu 10y ago

I am running linux on a 1440p laptop, and I will say the scaling is less than ideal. Works well for just the 1 screen. But unfortunately carries over to my external monitors (1080p) as well. I wind up downscaling to 1080p when I'm docked.

chris11 10y ago
Does Windows handle multiple monitors with different resolutions well? I haven't really tried it before.
- netsharc 10y ago
  It does, if you say "expand desktop" instead of "duplicate". Obviously. Depending on how you lay the screens out there can obviously be regions that are off-screen, that would confuse an app or two (e.g. imagine a 9-digit phone keypad, one display occupying regions 1 and 2, another regions 5 and 6. An app might think to start with its top edge at the off-screen region 4, and its bottom half in region 1, requiring one to hit Alt-Space, M, to lock the window titlebar to the mouse.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  FWIW, I've had a hell of a time dealing with a Surface Pro 4 and multiple monitors. The problem is scaling. The SP4 has a 3200x1800 resolution internal screen, and is quite hard to read with that resolution on a 13" screen. So, Microsoft suggests you turn up the resolution scaling in your display options and scale to 200 or 300%. Now the main SP4 screen looks okay, but if you try plugging it into external 20" or larger monitors, those are going to look atrocious. So then you might decide to use just the external monitors, and scale it back to 100%. That works pretty well, but Windows forces you to restart (or "Sign Out" and back in, which will close all of your programs and stuff you were working on) every time you change that scaling option. Great! Everything looks fine...until you disconnect the Surface from its dock. Now it's back to looking tiny, and to make use of the SP4 internal screen I've got to once again change the scaling, restart, etc. People at work ask me why I'm always swearing whenever I come into board meetings. It's because I've just detached my SP4 to bring it into the meeting, and I've either got to drop everything I'm doing to restart and be able to use it during the meeting, or keep the 100% scaling to avoid restarting and squint at my SP4's screen during the meeting.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago

Linux isn't really there yet. On my 3200x1800 XPS13 running Fedora, it took quite a bit of tweaking to get a usable desktop. My DE, Cinnamon, eventually looked okay once I tweaked the scaling (worked about as well as GNOME), but I still have to deal with a plethora of apps that are microscopic. I don't use KDE, but I've been told Qt apps are supposed to scale better on HiDPI.

brennen 10y ago
> Linux isn't really there yet. It really isn't, quite. I'm using a brand new Dell XPS 13 with the way-too-many-pixels option, and there are a lot of things that have to be tweaked, particularly if you're not running a mainstream desktop environment. Even with tweaks in place, there're places where proportions are off and/or UI elements are way too tiny. I expect that things will improve within the working lifetime of this laptop, but it's definitely a problem at the moment. I'd happily donate money to some kind of Linux Dealing With Too Many Pixels Initiative, if someone were going to put together an effort at putting developer time into all the miscellaneous issues and getting fixes into distros / applications / desktops / etc.
- erstorreyk 10y ago
  Have you had any problems with your new XPS' keyboard? Mine lags and sometimes doesn't register keypresses on around the D key.
  - CodeWriter23 10y ago
    Just a guess from someone who doesn't have an XPS but has experienced similar symptoms. Maybe there's some kind of debris or perhaps liquid in between the switch contacts for those keys. In my case, two plastic sheets comprised the contact surfaces and getting them separated and cleaning them with a damp cloth and drying them did the trick.
  - I_am_tiberius 10y ago
    I have an XPS13 1080p 9350. The keyboard actually works fine but it is the only weakness of the laptop in my opinion. I don't have any keys that cause problems but the quality of the arrow keys on that laptop is really bad - one reason why I switched to vim keybindings by taking advantage of the TAB key. In terms of keytravel Lenovo laptops and Macbooks <2016 are much better.