4 ms·

I imagine that along with the price tag the main issue for this thing is software support (or lack thereof). How is HighDPI support in Linux these days?

by joaomsa 13y ago

sounds 13y ago
The article also mentions they needed to enable DisplayPort 1.2 MST for the full 60Hz refresh rate, so I'm inferring that the monitor might be detected as two screens (a left-right split). If someone has more info on 4Kp60 and displayport, please chime in. Note that both nVidia and AMD support MST on their major products, including AMD APUs if the motherboard has displayport.
jlgreco 13y ago
I'm running Debian Wheezy on a Chromebook Pixel (2,560×1,700 at 12.85 in, or 244.28. Intel HD Graphics 4000) and it works great. If Intel GPUs can drive a screen that large, then I strongly suspect that Linux will as well. Intel support in Linux appears to be more or less on par with Intel support elsewhere.
bsimpson 13y ago
Like so much in Linux, it varies from app-to-app.
Stratoscope 13y ago
This is a medium DPI monitor, not anywhere close to high DPI. At 138 DPI, its pixel density is a bit lower than my ThinkPad W520's 141 DPI. So you have nothing to worry about regarding DPI; every Linux distro I've tried works fine on this kind of pixel density. The only question would be the sheer number of pixels on the screen.
- jzwinck 13y ago
  > The only question would be the sheer number of pixels on the screen. Which on Linux is a big, big question. My experience is that a 2x2 array of 2560x1440 displays is simply not reliable under Linux. The same worked fine with Windows. The total number of pixels is one factor that seems to trip up Xorg (or something); the above setup had a total resolution of 5120x2880, yet a 1x3 array totalling 4320x2560 worked fine. This was last year, on multiple machines with various graphics cards (but just one card in a given machine). So I don't know why, but it seems that somewhere between 4320 and 5120 linear pixels, or between 11 and 15 total megapixels, Xorg or some other part of Linux (but probably Xorg) has problems. This Asus screen is 3840x2160 which means two of them together (16.5 MP) will likely not work (there's a chance if they're oriented vertically so the max linear resolution is 4320), and three in any configuration is very likely to fail. Using many displays and getting very high resolution on Linux has been a bad situation for a long time now. Some hardware configurations just won't work (but are fine with Windows); others will hard-lock sometimes; still others will mostly be OK but once in two weeks freak out and spew artifacts everywhere. It's a real mess, and nobody seems to "own" fixing it.
  - qwerta 13y ago
    maybe drivers? I had lot of problems with 4 screens and proprietary AMD drivers. Open source drivers solved all problems.

I imagine that along with the price tag the main issue for this thing is software support (or lack thereof). How is HighDPI support in Linux these days?

by joaomsa 13y ago

I imagine that along with the price tag the main issue for this thing is software support (or lack thereof). How is HighDPI support in Linux these days?

sounds 13y ago

The article also mentions they needed to enable DisplayPort 1.2 MST for the full 60Hz refresh rate, so I'm inferring that the monitor might be detected as two screens (a left-right split). If someone has more info on 4Kp60 and displayport, please chime in. Note that both nVidia and AMD support MST on their major products, including AMD APUs if the motherboard has displayport.

jlgreco 13y ago

I'm running Debian Wheezy on a Chromebook Pixel (2,560×1,700 at 12.85 in, or 244.28. Intel HD Graphics 4000) and it works great. If Intel GPUs can drive a screen that large, then I strongly suspect that Linux will as well. Intel support in Linux appears to be more or less on par with Intel support elsewhere.

bsimpson 13y ago

Like so much in Linux, it varies from app-to-app.

Stratoscope 13y ago

This is a medium DPI monitor, not anywhere close to high DPI. At 138 DPI, its pixel density is a bit lower than my ThinkPad W520's 141 DPI. So you have nothing to worry about regarding DPI; every Linux distro I've tried works fine on this kind of pixel density. The only question would be the sheer number of pixels on the screen.

jzwinck 13y ago
> The only question would be the sheer number of pixels on the screen. Which on Linux is a big, big question. My experience is that a 2x2 array of 2560x1440 displays is simply not reliable under Linux. The same worked fine with Windows. The total number of pixels is one factor that seems to trip up Xorg (or something); the above setup had a total resolution of 5120x2880, yet a 1x3 array totalling 4320x2560 worked fine. This was last year, on multiple machines with various graphics cards (but just one card in a given machine). So I don't know why, but it seems that somewhere between 4320 and 5120 linear pixels, or between 11 and 15 total megapixels, Xorg or some other part of Linux (but probably Xorg) has problems. This Asus screen is 3840x2160 which means two of them together (16.5 MP) will likely not work (there's a chance if they're oriented vertically so the max linear resolution is 4320), and three in any configuration is very likely to fail. Using many displays and getting very high resolution on Linux has been a bad situation for a long time now. Some hardware configurations just won't work (but are fine with Windows); others will hard-lock sometimes; still others will mostly be OK but once in two weeks freak out and spew artifacts everywhere. It's a real mess, and nobody seems to "own" fixing it.
- qwerta 13y ago
  maybe drivers? I had lot of problems with 4 screens and proprietary AMD drivers. Open source drivers solved all problems.