4 ms·

On an unrelated note, is KDE or Gnome better for high DPI screens?

by kuwze 8y ago

dmytrish 8y ago
It depends. Gnome only allows integer scaling by default (1x, 2x) and fractional scaling is hidden behind an experimental flag in the Gnome registry. If you only need 2x, it's a perfect solution. KDE readily exposes fractional scaling (1x, 1.1x, 1.2x, ...) and it mostly works as intended, but with occasional artifacts: some raster icons looks torn, sometimes there are weird graphical artefacts between text lines in Konsole/Kate/etc (which is rather annoying), it only scales Qt apps well and needs nerdy manual tweaks for others (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, xterm). I can't use Gnome on my XPS 13 because I need around 1.3x (and prefer a customized KDE anyway), so I have to put up with this.
- dave7 8y ago
  > but with occasional artifacts: some raster icons looks torn, sometimes there are weird graphical artefacts between text lines in Konsole/Kate/etc (which is rather annoying) ... I have to put up with this. Frustratingly I can not remember the exact procedure to sort this out (and it's only been a year since I had to do it!), but I can tell you it is possible to get KDE resizing everything perfectly without any of these artefacts. It is something like this: KDE system setting -> Display & Monitors -> Scaling, leave set to 1 In /etc/sddm.conf, add: [XDisplay] ServerArguments=-dpi 125 KDE system settings -> Fonts -> Force Font DPI set to 125 KDE system settings -> Icons -> some tweaks in here I think The 125 change as preferred of course. There may be other settings I am forgetting. But I could absolutely not deal with those corruption in Konsole, KWrite, Okular etc and now I have it absolutely perfect.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  For what it's worth, at home I use KDE on a single 4K screen with scaling set to 2×, and there are no normal-user problems. I use Kubuntu, and Firefox, Chrome and LibreOffice scale correctly. GIMP looks a little small. I can get half-size or double-size apps if I start something from the CLI, or with X forwarding or similar. export GDK_SCALE=2 usually solves it. One small and obscure KDE utility program was broken with a HiDPI screen, but I filed a bug and it was fixed a few days later.
  - rossy 8y ago
    The most annoying aspect of HiDPI KDE for me is that Gwenview doesn't support it. It might appear to support HiDPI, but if you look closely, it always renders images with jumbo 2x2 pixels, even when downscaling. Okular used to have this problem as well, but it's been fixed there. Apart from that, I've had the same experience as you. Everything seems to work at 2x scaling, including third-party and GTK+ 3 apps.
    - Symbiote 8y ago
      …I hadn't noticed, which is embarrassing as I use Gwenview a lot. There's a bug report, and the suggested QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0 QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=1 gwenview . looks like a good workaround for the moment — I mostly use Gwenview fullscreen, so the toolbars don't really matter. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=373178 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=373178
ru999gol 8y ago
It kinda works in KDE, except some applications like gimp breaking. and of course when connecting an external display everything is broken but thats just normal linux desktop experience anyhow.

On an unrelated note, is KDE or Gnome better for high DPI screens?

by kuwze 8y ago

On an unrelated note, is KDE or Gnome better for high DPI screens?

It depends. Gnome only allows integer scaling by default (1x, 2x) and fractional scaling is hidden behind an experimental flag in the Gnome registry. If you only need 2x, it's a perfect solution. KDE readily exposes fractional scaling (1x, 1.1x, 1.2x, ...) and it mostly works as intended, but with occasional artifacts: some raster icons looks torn, sometimes there are weird graphical artefacts between text lines in Konsole/Kate/etc (which is rather annoying), it only scales Qt apps well and needs nerdy manual tweaks for others (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, xterm). I can't use Gnome on my XPS 13 because I need around 1.3x (and prefer a customized KDE anyway), so I have to put up with this.

dave7 8y ago
> but with occasional artifacts: some raster icons looks torn, sometimes there are weird graphical artefacts between text lines in Konsole/Kate/etc (which is rather annoying) ... I have to put up with this. Frustratingly I can not remember the exact procedure to sort this out (and it's only been a year since I had to do it!), but I can tell you it is possible to get KDE resizing everything perfectly without any of these artefacts. It is something like this: KDE system setting -> Display & Monitors -> Scaling, leave set to 1 In /etc/sddm.conf, add: [XDisplay] ServerArguments=-dpi 125 KDE system settings -> Fonts -> Force Font DPI set to 125 KDE system settings -> Icons -> some tweaks in here I think The 125 change as preferred of course. There may be other settings I am forgetting. But I could absolutely not deal with those corruption in Konsole, KWrite, Okular etc and now I have it absolutely perfect.
Symbiote 8y ago
For what it's worth, at home I use KDE on a single 4K screen with scaling set to 2×, and there are no normal-user problems. I use Kubuntu, and Firefox, Chrome and LibreOffice scale correctly. GIMP looks a little small. I can get half-size or double-size apps if I start something from the CLI, or with X forwarding or similar. export GDK_SCALE=2 usually solves it. One small and obscure KDE utility program was broken with a HiDPI screen, but I filed a bug and it was fixed a few days later.
- rossy 8y ago
  The most annoying aspect of HiDPI KDE for me is that Gwenview doesn't support it. It might appear to support HiDPI, but if you look closely, it always renders images with jumbo 2x2 pixels, even when downscaling. Okular used to have this problem as well, but it's been fixed there. Apart from that, I've had the same experience as you. Everything seems to work at 2x scaling, including third-party and GTK+ 3 apps.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    …I hadn't noticed, which is embarrassing as I use Gwenview a lot. There's a bug report, and the suggested QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0 QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=1 gwenview . looks like a good workaround for the moment — I mostly use Gwenview fullscreen, so the toolbars don't really matter. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=373178 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=373178

ru999gol 8y ago

It kinda works in KDE, except some applications like gimp breaking. and of course when connecting an external display everything is broken but thats just normal linux desktop experience anyhow.