7 ms·

This is the biggest thing keeping me from leaving the Mac for Linux, and it hasn’t really improved much in the last 4 years. I don’t think most people care abou

by irq 7y ago

This is the biggest thing keeping me from leaving the Mac for Linux, and it hasn’t really improved much in the last 4 years. I don’t think most people care about HighDPI (or whatever you want to call it), particularly Linux devs. But I can’t go back to lower DPI screens.

als0 7y ago
> I don’t think most people care about HighDPI (or whatever you want to call it), particularly Linux devs. But I can’t go back to lower DPI screens. I find this surprising. I'd say anyone who does any serious amount of multitasking (whether a Linux dev or not) would easily want one. I think people do care but they are just waiting on better pricing/availability.
- noodlesUK 7y ago
  My experience with hiDPI on Linux has been pretty varied. On GNOME, everything just works, and I recommend GNOME to most first-time Linux users. I use i3, and the scaling situation there involves setting some environment variables globally, but is otherwise fine (GDK_scale or something like that). The only issue I usually run into is when Firefox opens my file browser, which breaks the scaling somehow. Other than that, hiDPI is as good as it is in windows. MacOS definitely leads in that regard, but things have certainly gotten better to the point of not really worrying about it in Linux these days.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    > On GNOME, everything just works This is far from true. Gnome shell itself is mostly OK (if buggy), but only a minority of real apps work properly. The standard Gnome apps (Nautilus, Gnome Shell etc) are fine, but that's where the support pretty much stops.
  - als0 7y ago
    I think things will improve as more Linux devs get HiDPI monitors (ones with good IPS panels are still quite expensive). Ubuntu has some beta-level support for fractional scaling but it looked awful when I tried it. But I live in hope that it'll all be sorted out soon!
  - dwrodri 7y ago
    Seconding i3. I bought into vim when the evangelists came for me early in my career and it has payed wonderful dividends. I can't recommend i3wm for everyone but for those who like keeping their hands on the keyboard and want the wm to just get out of their way, i3 is perfect.
- the_af 7y ago
  > I find this surprising. I'd say anyone who does any serious amount of multitasking (whether a Linux dev or not) would easily want one. I would have thought so too, but this isn't my experience. The smartest developers I know at my current job still develop with old laptops with awful 720p screens (I mean, awful beyond just the low res) and can't be bothered to attach an external Full HD monitor, let alone ask for a 4K one. And still they are brilliant, produce great software, and are key when planning profound software changes in the company. These are people who I deeply admire and from whom I always learn something valuable when they speak. Keep in mind they are also developers, not "whiteboard engineers". My conclusion is that we nerds tend to overestimate ergonomics, because they are easier to see ("pff, I can only type with a mechanical keyboard!", "how can people code with fewer than three 4K monitors!"), but the actual bottlenecks and difficulties of building complex software lie elsewhere. I still can't stand 720p screens though.
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  I prefer low DPI monitors, i just like the pixels :-P. (writing this from a 23" 1366x768 desktop monitor) And honestly a lot of things are so broken in hidpi anyway that i do not see a reason to bother.
danieldk 7y ago
I have used GNOME with HiDPI for two years on Wayland and it is great. Even Tk apps seem to support HiDPI these days. However, this is all assuming that 2x scaling is fine for you, support for fractional scaling is not great yet.
- arboghast 7y ago
  Nah it's too big on a 28" 4k, trust me I tried everything before going back to Windows, even using Gnome Shell (which I despise) and experimental fractional scaling (which barely works, freezes and scales back to 100% randomly)
- robocat 7y ago
  Ubuntu 18.04 using 2x scaling is broken in lots of little ways for me. From the simple (boot screen runs at 1x so text is unreadable) to the wierd (VirtualBox tangle of bugs), to the frustrating (dolphin file manager, which I use to avoid UI bugs in the gnome file manager). I found workarounds for some issues, and maybe they are fixed in the next LTS, but there is no way I could recommend 18.04 with 4k to a non-professional.
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
Interesting. I've never really cared too much beyond a color calibrator (x-rite). What is an example of a HighDPI screen that will only work with Mac?
Yetanfou 7y ago
I do care about high dpi but not in the way most people seem to mean: I want as much text as readable on a screen. One of the many reasons for not using Gnome everything is that it insists on making everything SO BIG with enormous amounts of wasted space around it. Those 1600x1200 pixels on my laptop or 1920x1280 on the monitor are there to be used, not wasted. Firefox used to be another offender in this respect albeit one which is easier to tame - just change layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to something sensible (0.7 works quite well), move all controls to the navigation bar and close all toolbars.
zanny 7y ago
Qt 5.14 is now in beta and has a toggle switch to do per-display scaling based off DPI on all platforms. I've had a 4k 27" monitor mixed with 1080p and 1440p monitors of varying sizes for years and have managed to get 90% of software working great, and whenever I dip into Wayland get to use the fractional scaling there it goes up to 99% of software.
asjw 7y ago
I used Mac and Windows before, they are no way better, they all come with their own shortcomings At least XFCE just works
hamilyon2 7y ago
2.5K monitor with slightly bigger fonts and a few tweaks here and there is best of worlds on linux now, sadly

by irq 7y ago

als0 7y ago

> I don’t think most people care about HighDPI (or whatever you want to call it), particularly Linux devs. But I can’t go back to lower DPI screens. I find this surprising. I'd say anyone who does any serious amount of multitasking (whether a Linux dev or not) would easily want one. I think people do care but they are just waiting on better pricing/availability.

noodlesUK 7y ago
My experience with hiDPI on Linux has been pretty varied. On GNOME, everything just works, and I recommend GNOME to most first-time Linux users. I use i3, and the scaling situation there involves setting some environment variables globally, but is otherwise fine (GDK_scale or something like that). The only issue I usually run into is when Firefox opens my file browser, which breaks the scaling somehow. Other than that, hiDPI is as good as it is in windows. MacOS definitely leads in that regard, but things have certainly gotten better to the point of not really worrying about it in Linux these days.
- crispinb 7y ago
  > On GNOME, everything just works This is far from true. Gnome shell itself is mostly OK (if buggy), but only a minority of real apps work properly. The standard Gnome apps (Nautilus, Gnome Shell etc) are fine, but that's where the support pretty much stops.
- als0 7y ago
  I think things will improve as more Linux devs get HiDPI monitors (ones with good IPS panels are still quite expensive). Ubuntu has some beta-level support for fractional scaling but it looked awful when I tried it. But I live in hope that it'll all be sorted out soon!
- dwrodri 7y ago
  Seconding i3. I bought into vim when the evangelists came for me early in my career and it has payed wonderful dividends. I can't recommend i3wm for everyone but for those who like keeping their hands on the keyboard and want the wm to just get out of their way, i3 is perfect.
the_af 7y ago
> I find this surprising. I'd say anyone who does any serious amount of multitasking (whether a Linux dev or not) would easily want one. I would have thought so too, but this isn't my experience. The smartest developers I know at my current job still develop with old laptops with awful 720p screens (I mean, awful beyond just the low res) and can't be bothered to attach an external Full HD monitor, let alone ask for a 4K one. And still they are brilliant, produce great software, and are key when planning profound software changes in the company. These are people who I deeply admire and from whom I always learn something valuable when they speak. Keep in mind they are also developers, not "whiteboard engineers". My conclusion is that we nerds tend to overestimate ergonomics, because they are easier to see ("pff, I can only type with a mechanical keyboard!", "how can people code with fewer than three 4K monitors!"), but the actual bottlenecks and difficulties of building complex software lie elsewhere. I still can't stand 720p screens though.
badsectoracula 7y ago
I prefer low DPI monitors, i just like the pixels :-P. (writing this from a 23" 1366x768 desktop monitor) And honestly a lot of things are so broken in hidpi anyway that i do not see a reason to bother.

danieldk 7y ago

I have used GNOME with HiDPI for two years on Wayland and it is great. Even Tk apps seem to support HiDPI these days. However, this is all assuming that 2x scaling is fine for you, support for fractional scaling is not great yet.

arboghast 7y ago
Nah it's too big on a 28" 4k, trust me I tried everything before going back to Windows, even using Gnome Shell (which I despise) and experimental fractional scaling (which barely works, freezes and scales back to 100% randomly)
robocat 7y ago
Ubuntu 18.04 using 2x scaling is broken in lots of little ways for me. From the simple (boot screen runs at 1x so text is unreadable) to the wierd (VirtualBox tangle of bugs), to the frustrating (dolphin file manager, which I use to avoid UI bugs in the gnome file manager). I found workarounds for some issues, and maybe they are fixed in the next LTS, but there is no way I could recommend 18.04 with 4k to a non-professional.

GhettoMaestro 7y ago

Interesting. I've never really cared too much beyond a color calibrator (x-rite). What is an example of a HighDPI screen that will only work with Mac?

Yetanfou 7y ago

I do care about high dpi but not in the way most people seem to mean: I want as much text as readable on a screen. One of the many reasons for not using Gnome everything is that it insists on making everything SO BIG with enormous amounts of wasted space around it. Those 1600x1200 pixels on my laptop or 1920x1280 on the monitor are there to be used, not wasted. Firefox used to be another offender in this respect albeit one which is easier to tame - just change layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to something sensible (0.7 works quite well), move all controls to the navigation bar and close all toolbars.

zanny 7y ago

Qt 5.14 is now in beta and has a toggle switch to do per-display scaling based off DPI on all platforms. I've had a 4k 27" monitor mixed with 1080p and 1440p monitors of varying sizes for years and have managed to get 90% of software working great, and whenever I dip into Wayland get to use the fractional scaling there it goes up to 99% of software.

asjw 7y ago

I used Mac and Windows before, they are no way better, they all come with their own shortcomings At least XFCE just works

hamilyon2 7y ago

2.5K monitor with slightly bigger fonts and a few tweaks here and there is best of worlds on linux now, sadly