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Missing a killer feature here, at least for me: High-DPI support. No environment on Linux deals with high-DPI adequately yet. Between that and the other big one

by jrajav 12y ago

Missing a killer feature here, at least for me: High-DPI support. No environment on Linux deals with high-DPI adequately yet. Between that and the other big one mentioned in the article, multitouch trackpad support, there is simply no way I can compromise. There isn't really anything else tying me down to OS X, but those two are huge. They're the only major changes I've seen in my workflow and desktop experience in the past ten years aside from general performance.

neverminder 12y ago
I think missing high dpi support is no longer the case: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2145722/ubuntu-14-04-lands-with-few-new-features-but-heralds-ubuntu-on-tablets.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2145722/ubuntu-14-04-lands-wi...
Touche 12y ago
Gnome 3 is pretty close for HiDPI. So all of the default applications look great. It's still a bit of an issue that Chrome and Firefox are almost unusable so I've been using Epiphany and liking that.
- kelseyfrancis 12y ago
  > Gnome 3 is pretty close for HiDPI Until you connect a non-HiDPI external display, where everything will still be scaled up by a hilariously huge factor of 2.
- aeflash 12y ago
  Chrome has a ways to go before it fully supports HiDPI in linux, but in Firefox, all I did was set layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to 1.5 or 2.0 in about:config and everything scaled perfectly, UI and all. In Chrome you can set the default zoom for pages, but you will have tiny tabs.
tatqx 12y ago
High-DPI support in Ubuntu 14.04 is pretty good and it works great on the retina MacBook Pros.
- benaston 12y ago
  I installed 14.04 yesterday and was unable to get retina support. How do you enable it?
  - aeflash 12y ago
    There's a slider in the display settings.
dkhenry 12y ago
OSX doesn't have HighDPI support. They just scale everything and present a lower resolution. Go ahead and actually try to user a high resolution on your Macbook. I know I did and then I tried to set things to autoscale ( like gnome 3 will do right out of the box ) since most of the time I only want a few applications with lots of screen real estate and I want the others to have larger font. I gave up and just run OSX at the lower resolution and save the high pixel count for when I am in Linux.
- jrajav 12y ago
  > OSX doesn't have HighDPI support. They just scale everything and present a lower resolution. This is exactly what I'm referring to as High DPI support. Maybe it's not the solution you'd prefer but it is a solution. By contrast, Linux still has a lot of fit-and-finish issues with high-DPI, even in Gnome 3. I would believe that they're going about it in a better way on the backend, but the fact is OS X is the only one really delivering at the moment.
pyre 12y ago
What are you using multitouch for? I've spent the last 6 months with OSX as my main machine (not my first foray into OSX), and I use multitouch for scrolling and sometimes desktop-flipping, but only because OSX is designed that way. I could just as easily scroll with TrackPoint (I love me some TrackPoint) and use keyboard shortcuts to switch desktops (as I have on Linux in the past).
- jrajav 12y ago
  I use gestures for going forward / back in Chrome and for activating Exposé, but there are two main things that differentiate it: * Natural, responsive scrolling. After two-finger scrolling on OS X where it's so responsive that it's exactly like sliding paper over a table, nothing can really compare. Linux can't get to that point for a long time since it's limited to sending scroll wheel events. * Palm and thumb detection that work like black magic. I have never once had palming issues on OS X or issues with resting my thumb on the pad and using other fingers to point, click and drag. I've spent days on end trying to tweak the Linux Synaptics drivers to work the same way with no luck.
  - andor 12y ago
    Linux can't get to that point for a long time since it's limited to sending scroll wheel events. I don't have a proof, but this doesn't seem to be the case for GTK3 apps. Scrolling in Evince (GNOME's PDF viewer) and Web is very responsive.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > * Palm and thumb detection that work like black magic. I have never once had palming issues on OS X or issues with resting my thumb on the pad and using other fingers to point, click and drag. YMMV. I have had such issues.
lnteveryday 12y ago
I guess it depends on what you are doing. I rarely use the trackpad at all. In fact, I'd say that 85-90% of the time I have my trackpad disabled. Whether I'm working or not I tend to get by with just the keyboard (tiling wm). I guess those would be important points to me if I did any work with graphics or UI.

by jrajav 12y ago

neverminder 12y ago

I think missing high dpi support is no longer the case: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2145722/ubuntu-14-04-lands-with-few-new-features-but-heralds-ubuntu-on-tablets.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2145722/ubuntu-14-04-lands-wi...

Touche 12y ago

Gnome 3 is pretty close for HiDPI. So all of the default applications look great. It's still a bit of an issue that Chrome and Firefox are almost unusable so I've been using Epiphany and liking that.

kelseyfrancis 12y ago
> Gnome 3 is pretty close for HiDPI Until you connect a non-HiDPI external display, where everything will still be scaled up by a hilariously huge factor of 2.
aeflash 12y ago
Chrome has a ways to go before it fully supports HiDPI in linux, but in Firefox, all I did was set layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to 1.5 or 2.0 in about:config and everything scaled perfectly, UI and all. In Chrome you can set the default zoom for pages, but you will have tiny tabs.

tatqx 12y ago

High-DPI support in Ubuntu 14.04 is pretty good and it works great on the retina MacBook Pros.

benaston 12y ago
I installed 14.04 yesterday and was unable to get retina support. How do you enable it?
- aeflash 12y ago
  There's a slider in the display settings.

dkhenry 12y ago

OSX doesn't have HighDPI support. They just scale everything and present a lower resolution. Go ahead and actually try to user a high resolution on your Macbook. I know I did and then I tried to set things to autoscale ( like gnome 3 will do right out of the box ) since most of the time I only want a few applications with lots of screen real estate and I want the others to have larger font. I gave up and just run OSX at the lower resolution and save the high pixel count for when I am in Linux.

jrajav 12y ago
> OSX doesn't have HighDPI support. They just scale everything and present a lower resolution. This is exactly what I'm referring to as High DPI support. Maybe it's not the solution you'd prefer but it is a solution. By contrast, Linux still has a lot of fit-and-finish issues with high-DPI, even in Gnome 3. I would believe that they're going about it in a better way on the backend, but the fact is OS X is the only one really delivering at the moment.

pyre 12y ago

What are you using multitouch for? I've spent the last 6 months with OSX as my main machine (not my first foray into OSX), and I use multitouch for scrolling and sometimes desktop-flipping, but only because OSX is designed that way. I could just as easily scroll with TrackPoint (I love me some TrackPoint) and use keyboard shortcuts to switch desktops (as I have on Linux in the past).

jrajav 12y ago
I use gestures for going forward / back in Chrome and for activating Exposé, but there are two main things that differentiate it: * Natural, responsive scrolling. After two-finger scrolling on OS X where it's so responsive that it's exactly like sliding paper over a table, nothing can really compare. Linux can't get to that point for a long time since it's limited to sending scroll wheel events. * Palm and thumb detection that work like black magic. I have never once had palming issues on OS X or issues with resting my thumb on the pad and using other fingers to point, click and drag. I've spent days on end trying to tweak the Linux Synaptics drivers to work the same way with no luck.
- andor 12y ago
  Linux can't get to that point for a long time since it's limited to sending scroll wheel events. I don't have a proof, but this doesn't seem to be the case for GTK3 apps. Scrolling in Evince (GNOME's PDF viewer) and Web is very responsive.
- pyre 12y ago
  > * Palm and thumb detection that work like black magic. I have never once had palming issues on OS X or issues with resting my thumb on the pad and using other fingers to point, click and drag. YMMV. I have had such issues.

lnteveryday 12y ago

I guess it depends on what you are doing. I rarely use the trackpad at all. In fact, I'd say that 85-90% of the time I have my trackpad disabled. Whether I'm working or not I tend to get by with just the keyboard (tiling wm). I guess those would be important points to me if I did any work with graphics or UI.