3 ms·

Configuring presentable fonts for the nth time was the thing that tipped me over the edge years ago to promise to myself that I will never again make another Li

by raggi 3y ago

Configuring presentable fonts for the nth time was the thing that tipped me over the edge years ago to promise to myself that I will never again make another Linux desktop configuration until I see one that _out of the box_ provides a not-obviously-buggy presentation for every app that I use daily. Since then I have yet to see an environment meet that bar, and have wasted no more time configuring X, fonts, compositors, themes, key binds, etc. I look forward to this changing one day, but I'm not expecting it soon. The ecosystem moves between technical targets too often to reach sufficient polish to meet the bar.

pmarreck 3y ago
NixOS lets you configure them once, forever.
- Apreche 3y ago
  That's once too many.
  - e12e 3y ago
    It's the same number of times you need to configure scaling in macOS though?
    - moondev 3y ago
      Nope. They said out of the box. So it's "looks like 1920x1080" with a massive dock. Pure and intuitive as intended.
    - chaorace 3y ago
      Welcome to HN: where NixOS is evangelized with the thunderous battlecry of "People who hate configuring love configuring NixOS! If you hate configuring too, you should stop using that system you've already finished configuring and then learn to configure this new one!"
- therein 3y ago
  It's not like NixOS never had any breaking changes. It was my mainly driver for a few years and I remember at least a few announcements of breaking changes.
moondev 3y ago
Using a scaled resolution may affect performance.
e12e 3y ago
When was this? Did you try Ubuntu 18.04 or later lts? Curious what was wrong with Wayland/Gnome and fonts. I generally replace the monospace/console font - but i do that on MacOS and windows too. Tbh I find the lack of decent (tiled) wm (as well as broken display on "low-res" (1440p/QHD) external displays) on MacOS much more frustrating. I make do with yabai, but the hoops one needs to jump through and the resulting fragile setup isn't great. Hm, now i came across this - so maybe there's a decent fix for that too? https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/ https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  > broken display on "low-res" (1440p/QHD) external displays Curious as to what's being referred to here. I've used 27" 2560x1440 displays with macOS for a long time, both with Intel and M-series Macs.
  - maleldil 3y ago
    IME, 1440p at 27" looks really bad if you're used to 4K at 150% (effectively 1440p). I had to buy a new monitor and went with a 1440p to save money, but returned it and got the 4K. It's significantly better.
  - gnosek 3y ago
    I used external FHD displays and the result was a blurry mess with obvious fractional scaling applied (nothing was aligned to pixel boundaries)
  - e12e 3y ago
    The register link goes into more detail - basically Apple dropped (or never had?) fractional scaling. So for an m2 Mac the external display and internal display will look different (unlike, say with Linux/Wayland - or with an apple hidpi external display).
    - dandongus 3y ago
5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
I have to wonder why you're expecting the same level of polish from an operating system (a bunch of them actually) that have to support thousands of different configurations made by third-party vendors, as from a proprietary operating system from the same vendor that makes the hardware for it (with an extremely limited set of configurations). The reason you seem to prefer macOS and Apple is the very same reason I tend stay as far away from it as possible.
soraminazuki 3y ago
You’re asking for the impossible. When it comes to fonts, no single configuration would ever make everyone happy. Look at the screenshots for the out of the box appearance on Manjaro. I don’t see anything wrong with it compared to macOS. Yet, here we are. Making a font change to an open source project is a good way to attract angry replies in issue trackers if you’re not careful. The Perfect Configuration (TM) simply doesn’t exist.
- raggi 3y ago
  Oh I agree that font and weight selection are entirely preferential. In both of these images you can clearly see bad color bleed in the title bar font, and in the content font in the after case. I'm guessing the users main concern is that they want a higher text density which the after shot demonstrates. IMO both of these cases can be improved substantially to remove the color faults using grayscale subpixel rather than this colorful mess. RGB subpixel has not looked good on any screen I've used in what about 10 years? The shapes of displays no longer produces good results with these techniques. Why? Take a picture of your screen from close up with a modern phone and zoom in. You may see a non-RGB layout, but even if you don't you'll almost certainly observe a pattern where the empty space is significantly vertically larger around one boundary (often red/blue), this is related to the brightness targets monitors have been hitting for so long. As the pixels no longer align with the theoretical shape, if you can see the colors, the colors often look super trashy.

by raggi 3y ago

pmarreck 3y ago

NixOS lets you configure them once, forever.

Apreche 3y ago
That's once too many.
- e12e 3y ago
  It's the same number of times you need to configure scaling in macOS though?
  - moondev 3y ago
    Nope. They said out of the box. So it's "looks like 1920x1080" with a massive dock. Pure and intuitive as intended.
  - chaorace 3y ago
    Welcome to HN: where NixOS is evangelized with the thunderous battlecry of "People who hate configuring love configuring NixOS! If you hate configuring too, you should stop using that system you've already finished configuring and then learn to configure this new one!"
therein 3y ago
It's not like NixOS never had any breaking changes. It was my mainly driver for a few years and I remember at least a few announcements of breaking changes.

moondev 3y ago

Using a scaled resolution may affect performance.

e12e 3y ago

When was this? Did you try Ubuntu 18.04 or later lts? Curious what was wrong with Wayland/Gnome and fonts. I generally replace the monospace/console font - but i do that on MacOS and windows too. Tbh I find the lack of decent (tiled) wm (as well as broken display on "low-res" (1440p/QHD) external displays) on MacOS much more frustrating. I make do with yabai, but the hoops one needs to jump through and the resulting fragile setup isn't great. Hm, now i came across this - so maybe there's a decent fix for that too? https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/ https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

kitsunesoba 3y ago
> broken display on "low-res" (1440p/QHD) external displays Curious as to what's being referred to here. I've used 27" 2560x1440 displays with macOS for a long time, both with Intel and M-series Macs.
- maleldil 3y ago
  IME, 1440p at 27" looks really bad if you're used to 4K at 150% (effectively 1440p). I had to buy a new monitor and went with a 1440p to save money, but returned it and got the 4K. It's significantly better.
- gnosek 3y ago
  I used external FHD displays and the result was a blurry mess with obvious fractional scaling applied (nothing was aligned to pixel boundaries)
- e12e 3y ago
  The register link goes into more detail - basically Apple dropped (or never had?) fractional scaling. So for an m2 Mac the external display and internal display will look different (unlike, say with Linux/Wayland - or with an apple hidpi external display).
  - dandongus 3y ago

5e92cb50239222b 3y ago

I have to wonder why you're expecting the same level of polish from an operating system (a bunch of them actually) that have to support thousands of different configurations made by third-party vendors, as from a proprietary operating system from the same vendor that makes the hardware for it (with an extremely limited set of configurations). The reason you seem to prefer macOS and Apple is the very same reason I tend stay as far away from it as possible.

soraminazuki 3y ago

You’re asking for the impossible. When it comes to fonts, no single configuration would ever make everyone happy. Look at the screenshots for the out of the box appearance on Manjaro. I don’t see anything wrong with it compared to macOS. Yet, here we are. Making a font change to an open source project is a good way to attract angry replies in issue trackers if you’re not careful. The Perfect Configuration (TM) simply doesn’t exist.

raggi 3y ago
Oh I agree that font and weight selection are entirely preferential. In both of these images you can clearly see bad color bleed in the title bar font, and in the content font in the after case. I'm guessing the users main concern is that they want a higher text density which the after shot demonstrates. IMO both of these cases can be improved substantially to remove the color faults using grayscale subpixel rather than this colorful mess. RGB subpixel has not looked good on any screen I've used in what about 10 years? The shapes of displays no longer produces good results with these techniques. Why? Take a picture of your screen from close up with a modern phone and zoom in. You may see a non-RGB layout, but even if you don't you'll almost certainly observe a pattern where the empty space is significantly vertically larger around one boundary (often red/blue), this is related to the brightness targets monitors have been hitting for so long. As the pixels no longer align with the theoretical shape, if you can see the colors, the colors often look super trashy.