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High-DPI displays and Linux

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Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#21

Post by ultramancool »

andmarios wrote: post #18

Imo Linux, KDE and most other software works nicely with HiDPI. A small issue is GTK apps that don't respect DPI settings. The most significant problem AFAIK is for people who switch frequently between different displays. There are a few settings here and there you have to adjust every time you switch between Hi and Lo-DPI.

> Imo Linux, KDE and most other software works nicely with HiDPI.

Having written some Qt apps and used them on scaled screens... eh. It's got some work to go, but we're making progress. Apparently Qt 5.4 will have further improvements in this field too.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#22

Post by klaasvakie »

I have a Thinkpad Yoga 2 --- 3800x1800 I think --- I find that the GTK-based stuff works well on HiDPI, but not automatically, so you need to fiddle with the GTK settings a bit.

The QT stuff is worse since they cannot be fixed by adjusting only the font size.

The older (Xaw3D,TK) stuff is really bad.

I have never seen different DPI on different displays working.

99% of my day is spent in the terminal (xfce4-terminal) though and the crisp text makes it all worth while.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#23

Post by enobrev »

lazerscience wrote: post #2

Because the article mentions that Chromium doesnt have HighDPI support right now: You can actually compile it with the -Denable_hidpi=1 flag which at least displays most web sites in the right way though the menu/navigation is broken (which is probably the main reason it isnt enabled by default).

There's also a setting in chrome://flags (ctrl+f search for dpi: "Overrides the device scale factor on the device"), although the dropdowns no longer work and the tabs look ridiculous when set to anything above 1.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#24

Post by marcosdumay »

I see that phrasing all the time:

"Well, KDE can do what we are looking for, but GNOME does it in a hackish way. As we use GNOME, our review is all about it, and as a conclusion, Linux is no good."

Why do these people insist on using GNOME after all?

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#25

Post by seanmcdirmid »

georgeecollins wrote: post #15
Aardwolf wrote: post #12

Somewhere in the 90's, games were in 320x200 pixel resolution, and the Windows 3.11 desktop was 640x480 pixels or so on a typical 386 computer. Then up to around the year 2000, resolutions increased, going through such stages as 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024 (your CRT would flicker if much higher, and then LCDs came along pinning it at 1280x1024 for 17"). Then the resolution (or especially DPI) growth basically sto…

Game developers don't traditionally think about their games in terms of DPI. Think about it: a game is played on a TV ot Monitor that can display 1920x1080 pixels, but what size is it? 23" diagonal? 30" diagonal? .. etc. Game developers these days usually think of a PC or console game display in terms of pixel count and aspect ratio, not DPI

Many games have configurable resolution for a fixed screen size, which is basically a configurable DPI. Much of the rendering that goes on can use pixel shaders to take advantage of the extra pixels (e.g. via implicit surfaces).

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#26

Post by bryanlarsen »

I have a Thinkpad Yoga 2 Pro (3200x1800 @ 13"), and often use an external monitor. My "solution" is to turn off HiDPI and rely on the zoom features in all of my apps. (terminal, emacs & browsers)

Browser windows on the laptop usually run at a zoom of 200%, whereas windows on the external display run at 90%.

Annoying, but the beautiful text is worth the bother.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#27

Post by enobrev »

andmarios wrote: post #16
chroma wrote: post #6

What a mess. I didn't know HiDPI was so spotty on Linux. It's unclear to me why people would subject themselves to such an experience. If you want a HiDPI laptop, why not spend a little more to get a retina mac? On a developer's salary, the difference is a rounding error.

It's unclear to me why Linux running on a retina mac wouldn't have the same resolution problems as Linux running on PC hardware with a similar display.

It absolutely has the same resolution problems. I'm running ubuntu 14.10 on a macbook pro with a retina screen (installed from scratch last week). TweakUI helps make unity look better. Google Chrome's UI looks terrible, although setting the default page scaling to 150% does pretty well for browsing.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#28

Post by jcagalawan »

klaasvakie wrote: post #20
bitL wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you survive with UX31A's touchpad in Linux? On my UX32VD it's the most horrible part of Linux experience (also battery drained while idle in 2 hours (2 SSDs) doesn't help)

I don't have an UX31A, but an UX31E --- the touchpad is brilliant (I think mine has the elantech one) Also, I get 7.5 hours on the battery, I wonder what went wrong between the UX31E and the UX31A?

I have a UX31A and my experience is like yours with Ubuntu 14.04.

Only quirk I have with the touchpad is that on Windows, with 1 finger idle on the touchpad and another finger moving the cursor would still move with the moving finger. On Ubuntu, the cursor remains stationary any time there are two fingers on it. I probably would not have noticed it if I weren't already so used to the Windows functionality so it isn't a big deal at all.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#29

Post by guardian5x »

marcosdumay wrote: post #24

I see that phrasing all the time: "Well, KDE can do what we are looking for, but GNOME does it in a hackish way. As we use GNOME, our review is all about it, and as a conclusion, Linux is no good." Why do these people insist on using GNOME after all?

Or they could just use Windows. But that also wouldn't be hackish enough.

Re: High-DPI displays and Linux

#30

Post by andmarios »

ultramancool wrote: post #21
andmarios wrote: post #18

Imo Linux, KDE and most other software works nicely with HiDPI. A small issue is GTK apps that don't respect DPI settings. The most significant problem AFAIK is for people who switch frequently between different displays. There are a few settings here and there you have to adjust every time you switch between Hi and Lo-DPI.

> Imo Linux, KDE and most other software works nicely with HiDPI. Having written some Qt apps and used them on scaled screens... eh. It's got some work to go, but we're making progress. Apparently Qt 5.4 will have further improvements in this field too.

If we are talking about complete resolution independence I agree.

Currently on two monitors with the same physical dimensions but different resolution you can't get a common rendering. But you can get a decent rendering from both of them, albeit a bit different; one for example will have a tad larger icons, the other maybe a little larger fonts,etc.

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