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My issues with a WM usually comes down to UI scaling. Modern laptops (and desktop monitors) with a 4K display render things too small at 1x scale, and too large

My issues with a WM usually comes down to UI scaling. Modern laptops (and desktop monitors) with a 4K display render things too small at 1x scale, and too large at 2x scale. Windows and OS X solve this problem by allowing 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x scaling with no blurriness; it's not a simple linear resolution scale. Today on Linux I can only find this on Wayland, so I'm already restricted to certain WMs (like KDE, swaywm, Gnome), and even then it doesn't work right across all apps. And when this topic is brought up [1], it's met with "Well, let's argue about the definition of 'sharpness'." If I was a 4K display user trying Linux for the first time this would affect my perception of Linux on the desktop negatively. [1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787

jraph 4y ago
I'm with you on this.
secondcoming 4y ago
My laptop has a 4k screen. My monitor is a 4k screen. I use Linux in a VM. Extending my laptop screen onto my monitor screws everything up with Linux. Windows is fine. And then KDE and Gnome have different UI scaling logic. It’s a real mess.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Funny thing is the method of using xrandr or nvidia-settings to scale continues to work just fine.
iasay 4y ago
Same trouble. The problem with Linux on the desktop is that all polish, quality and consistency is "soon" and has been for 20 years. No one wants to do the last 20% of the job when you can rewrite the interesting bits again for the 10th time. Microsoft are the same now.
seba_dos1 4y ago
I'm using hidpi scaling on 13" 4K screen with Plasma/X11 just fine - that is, until an external screen that wants a different scaling factor is connected. This is still fine though; the only cases where I attach an external screen are presentations or other fullscreen content where the mismatched scale doesn't matter at all. However, if you want to generally work with multiple screens with various scaling ratios, you need to go Wayland indeed.
michaelmrose 4y ago
Under X11 you can use xrandr --scale or with nvidia configured this with its display settings GUI. This option accepts as you specified 1.25 1.5 1.75. You can also tweak the desired font size to taste

jraph 4y ago

I'm with you on this.

secondcoming 4y ago

My laptop has a 4k screen. My monitor is a 4k screen. I use Linux in a VM. Extending my laptop screen onto my monitor screws everything up with Linux. Windows is fine. And then KDE and Gnome have different UI scaling logic. It’s a real mess.

michaelmrose 4y ago
Funny thing is the method of using xrandr or nvidia-settings to scale continues to work just fine.

iasay 4y ago

Same trouble. The problem with Linux on the desktop is that all polish, quality and consistency is "soon" and has been for 20 years. No one wants to do the last 20% of the job when you can rewrite the interesting bits again for the 10th time. Microsoft are the same now.

seba_dos1 4y ago

I'm using hidpi scaling on 13" 4K screen with Plasma/X11 just fine - that is, until an external screen that wants a different scaling factor is connected. This is still fine though; the only cases where I attach an external screen are presentations or other fullscreen content where the mismatched scale doesn't matter at all. However, if you want to generally work with multiple screens with various scaling ratios, you need to go Wayland indeed.

michaelmrose 4y ago

Under X11 you can use xrandr --scale or with nvidia configured this with its display settings GUI. This option accepts as you specified 1.25 1.5 1.75. You can also tweak the desired font size to taste