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> Ubuntu 20.04 (Gnome) is the first version of Ubuntu that's ever been able to scale different density monitors to different scales. Welcome to the world that

> Ubuntu 20.04 (Gnome) is the first version of Ubuntu that's ever been able to scale different density monitors to different scales. Welcome to the world that Fedora users have been living in for years already. Ubuntu users can thank to Canonical's decision not to enable Wayland in 18.04 for that...

teekert 7y ago
That was mostly done not to create confusion regarding remote desktop/screen sharing solutions not working... different audiences I guess.
- vetinari 7y ago
  Probably. It might have been a good call in that regard; as with everything, there are compromises. With a hindsight, the remote desktop/screen sharing solutions caught up faster (except the closed source ones - they have no motivation when ubuntu works, so why bother) than figuring out how to handle several displays with different dpis under X11 so that legacy apps not using modern Gtk/Qt work.
- alias_neo 7y ago
  If it was intentional, it was a horrific UX fail. Every ounce of my being convinced me that the way it was presented, I should be able to scale my monitors differently, and the fact that it didn't was just a bug nobody cared to fix. If it really was intentional, a small dialog or log that explains _why_ I couldn't scale monitors differently would have sufficed, or, simply moving the percentage adjustment control out of the settings for each display. On that note, 20.04 is supposed to support fractional scaling, but if I try to turn the toggle on, it just fails silently, so are we back to square one, or did a developer somewhere decide some precondition means I can't _currently_ turn it on, but didn't feel it was worth telling me, the user, why?
  - vetinari 7y ago
    Are you trying to enable fractional scaling under X11 or Wayland session? In the past, when it wasn't exposed in GUI, and worked for Wayland only, it was necessary to logout and login between enabling fractional scaling and setting the scale itself (the reason was, that Xwayland was started in different mode then; technicality, that doesn't matter no normal users, but then, the functionality was labeled experimental and enabled via gsettings anyway). The X11 fractional scaling is a different beast; it uses xrandr scaling and requires cooperation from the graphic card (the output encoder, specifically - it sets up framebuffer at different size than the output to display). That also means, that it won't work on machines that do not have output encoder at all and assume framebuffer resolution is equal to output resolution, like remote sessions or virtual machine clients. Here I agree, that some error message would be appreciated. It was also brave from Canonical to enable it for LTS, without going through a testing cycle in a non-LTS release.
    - alias_neo 7y ago
      I'm in Wayland, I see the option in the display settings. "Fractional Scaling" but toggling it does nothing other than making the screen flash black for a second.
alias_neo 7y ago
But I _was_ using Wayland in 18.04. So it wasn't just that Wayland wasn't the default, it didn't work even in Wayland on 18.04. I know Fedora works better, a friend/colleague of mine who uses Fedora repeatedly reminds me of it :D

teekert 7y ago

That was mostly done not to create confusion regarding remote desktop/screen sharing solutions not working... different audiences I guess.

vetinari 7y ago
Probably. It might have been a good call in that regard; as with everything, there are compromises. With a hindsight, the remote desktop/screen sharing solutions caught up faster (except the closed source ones - they have no motivation when ubuntu works, so why bother) than figuring out how to handle several displays with different dpis under X11 so that legacy apps not using modern Gtk/Qt work.
alias_neo 7y ago
If it was intentional, it was a horrific UX fail. Every ounce of my being convinced me that the way it was presented, I should be able to scale my monitors differently, and the fact that it didn't was just a bug nobody cared to fix. If it really was intentional, a small dialog or log that explains _why_ I couldn't scale monitors differently would have sufficed, or, simply moving the percentage adjustment control out of the settings for each display. On that note, 20.04 is supposed to support fractional scaling, but if I try to turn the toggle on, it just fails silently, so are we back to square one, or did a developer somewhere decide some precondition means I can't _currently_ turn it on, but didn't feel it was worth telling me, the user, why?
- vetinari 7y ago
  Are you trying to enable fractional scaling under X11 or Wayland session? In the past, when it wasn't exposed in GUI, and worked for Wayland only, it was necessary to logout and login between enabling fractional scaling and setting the scale itself (the reason was, that Xwayland was started in different mode then; technicality, that doesn't matter no normal users, but then, the functionality was labeled experimental and enabled via gsettings anyway). The X11 fractional scaling is a different beast; it uses xrandr scaling and requires cooperation from the graphic card (the output encoder, specifically - it sets up framebuffer at different size than the output to display). That also means, that it won't work on machines that do not have output encoder at all and assume framebuffer resolution is equal to output resolution, like remote sessions or virtual machine clients. Here I agree, that some error message would be appreciated. It was also brave from Canonical to enable it for LTS, without going through a testing cycle in a non-LTS release.
  - alias_neo 7y ago
    I'm in Wayland, I see the option in the display settings. "Fractional Scaling" but toggling it does nothing other than making the screen flash black for a second.

alias_neo 7y ago

But I _was_ using Wayland in 18.04. So it wasn't just that Wayland wasn't the default, it didn't work even in Wayland on 18.04. I know Fedora works better, a friend/colleague of mine who uses Fedora repeatedly reminds me of it :D