> HOWEVER, and I hope this is a transient situation, there is a problem: in GNOME, applications that aren’t native Wayland apps don’t scale nicely. Transient situations are almost permanent in Linux land. This has been a problem for a long time and I don't see a solution coming in the near future. But maybe I'm wrong (I hope so!).
The only part that's not going to be available for a while is fractional scaling in GTK and old Qt5 software needs to update to Qt6. Everything else is rather quickly falling in place. GNOME in its stereotypical fashion doesn't seem to want to support fractional scaling and doesn't want to provide QoL features like not making XWayland apps blurry, but that's not a problem with Wayland per se.
Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
171–180 of 198 posts
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me type down what I learned through many hours of research. Under a Wayland compositor, there are basically three types of apps. 1. XWayland apps which cannot use Wayland's scaling protocols, but may be able to use Xft.dpi to scale themselves. Examples include Electron apps when not running on Wayland and later versions of Qt5. These will work without blurriness but they cannot support proper multi-dpi support. T…
There must be more categories than this because Qt 5 on Wayland can do fractional scaling since some years, you may need to set QT_SCALE_FACTOR_ROUNDING_POLICY=PassThrough.
Since some years? I don't think so. wp-fractional-scale-v1 was merged only like 1 year ago. The only more recent version of Qt5 is 5.15 and on the release notes I don't see any Wayland changes.. Any reference you have for that?
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me type down what I learned through many hours of research. Under a Wayland compositor, there are basically three types of apps. 1. XWayland apps which cannot use Wayland's scaling protocols, but may be able to use Xft.dpi to scale themselves. Examples include Electron apps when not running on Wayland and later versions of Qt5. These will work without blurriness but they cannot support proper multi-dpi support. T…
> 1. XWayland apps (...) The Wayland compositor has no way of detecting whether it actually scales Can't X apps just set a window property (XChangeProperty) with their scale factor and have compositor read that?
The toolkits would need to add that, and some of them had engineering direction incompatible with such an idea.
Especially GTK 3, which was incompatible (by default) with anything that didn't resemble the imagined wayland future, including non RGBA8888 displays or systems with different GL and X11 visuals.
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it's not like the "line is drawn" in the sense of GNU software not working on such systems. They draw it in what's included in the default repository for guix... so that line does not actually impact many people, and those who are impacted by it can still cross the line pretty easily. About the CPU microcode updates... why do you believe they are important? I mean, if your system runs arbitrary code off the Int…
> Well, it's not like the "line is drawn" in the sense of GNU software not working on such systems. They draw it in what's included in the default repository for guix... so that line does not actually impact many people, and those who are impacted by it can still cross the line pretty easily. And if what's in the install image results in the OS not bringing up important hardware like network cards, then the software…
> because telling people about nonguix in any official docs or communication channels is disallowed.
That's pretty bad. I'm definitely against that.
> We call that a web browser.
Are there known exploits based on web browser use, which are foiled by CPU microcode changes? Or, are these speculated to be possible?
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless the device is malfunctioning or otherwise damaged in a meaningful way, I don't see why it would be time for new a laptop, after only 3 years. I bought mine with the prospect of it lasting at least 6 years (and it's going strong 2/3 in already), but I don't plan on replacing it unless it breaks down or prevents me from working on my stuff for other reasons. Anyway, good choice on the new laptop. My next device…
I haven't ever had a laptop USB ports last more then 3 years. In fact my last laptop, an XPS 13, had failing USB-C ports within 1.5 years. I admit I probably connect an USB device 5-10 times per day.
Use a cheap dock to plug/unplug your devices into 5-10 times per day, and change that when the USB port fails?
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an issue with any software that tries to maintain backwards compatibility, not Linux. Windows has: - Many years worth of different control panels. - Little consistency with respect to toolkits in general. - Fractional scaling issues in applications using older toolkits (e.g., open up the policy editor and notice the blurry fonts). Microsoft is actually giving up here and has been experimenting with ML-based s…
Window's backward compatibility is way better though. There are plenty of GNOME extensions and applications that just don't work anymore under modern GNOME Wayland. Example: all the redshift applications and extensions for lowering the screen brightness.
It's seemed a little odd to me, particularly given Linus' attitude of "never break userspace", that so many high-profile projects decide to break backwards compatibility almost for the sake of it (particularly GTK/GNOME).
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't ever had a laptop USB ports last more then 3 years. In fact my last laptop, an XPS 13, had failing USB-C ports within 1.5 years. I admit I probably connect an USB device 5-10 times per day.
Use a cheap dock to plug/unplug your devices into 5-10 times per day, and change that when the USB port fails?
The main reason for me is that I change locations often. Meeting rooms, different companies, private usage etc.
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only part that's not going to be available for a while is fractional scaling in GTK and old Qt5 software needs to update to Qt6. Everything else is rather quickly falling in place. GNOME in its stereotypical fashion doesn't seem to want to support fractional scaling and doesn't want to provide QoL features like not making XWayland apps blurry, but that's not a problem with Wayland per se.
actually... https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-XWayland-Frac-Scaling
Well, I'm glad to be proven wrong. That still looks to be a downsampling method rather than just not applying the scale and using Xft.dpi though, but that can have advantages in multi-dpi setups I guess.
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It simply does not matter, because all DEs are on Wayland now, everything supports it, and honestly, I haven't seen an application not supporting Wayland for quite some time. Even Chrome is Wayland-native now.
You don't run Discord, I take it... Meanwhile, it's apparently going to change soon, but Steam games generally use Xwayland.
discord is electron and runs perfectly under wayland. a few flags to turn it on and you're good.
Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, this is a big deal. Will it work with any package manager or only things that it explicitly supports? One thing that has become a persistent headache for me with Nix is trying to get reproducible builds with Julia, due to the fact that the package manager doesn't have direct integration with Nix, and `nix build` purposefully restricts network access. I'd happily move to Guix if they have an elegant way to deal…
Since it's all just Guile Scheme, a full programming language, you can extend it in any way you want, and use the Scheme libraries you want, doing whatever network access you please.
The builder is sandboxed, the whole model goes out the window otherwise.
Also, I really doubt Guix moves the needle much here. It can't make Julia magically more reproducible without effectively doing the same techniques you'd have to use in Nix.