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Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

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Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#41
post #34
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> E.g. it could alternate between 1 black and 1 white pixel in the physical buffer or it could sometimes make two adjacent pixels the same color. This is a very odd definition of "no blur".

It works in chromium without anything I'd call blur. Here it is at 175% scale: https://i.ibb.co/DtKm69d/image.png

[flagged]

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#43

"Free Software Foundation position on firmware ... is that if a device has ... firmware ... in a form that users can’t modify, then the system as a whole is not free software. This is technically correct but doesn’t logically imply that the right strategy for advancing free software is to forbid firmware blobs" It may not be the convenient thing for novice users, but it is an important strategy to "dogfood" fully-fre…

The thing is that the FSF's stance is already a pragmatic approach of sorts but the line is drawn in a strange place that doesn't really help advance the cause. The hard line approach of "all firmware must be free, too" would render basically every computer unusable, even RMS can see that's going too far to be practical. So, they make an abstraction boundary where "free" stops: If the kernel doesn't load the firmware then it's as if the chip is implemented completely in hardware. It's a practical decision because you have to stop somewhere otherwise you can't get anything done. I wish the FSF/GNU-aligned folks would just make a slightly different compromise that makes it a lot easier for people to start using free software distros. Not shipping CPU microcode updates is particularly harmful to users. 10 years ago it was not too hard to run a distro without firmware blobs on a laptop if you were cool with just getting a thinkpad, but modern intel hardware requires a blob for graphics so even that path is closed now. My 2022 thinkpad x1 needs blobs for graphics, wifi, bluetooth, and sound and I tried to find something modern that didn't need them and gave up eventually.

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#44

> Privileging principle over praxis is generally a losing strategy. Unfortunately it’s also Stallman’s — and thus sadly by extension the FSF’s — entire shtick.

Although if you look at FSFs major projects Emacs and gcc they do run on many OSs including non-free (e.g. Solaris, macOS, Windows, VMS and virtually anything that exists) and other free Unixes.

GUIX is much much more restricted.

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#45

I've been intrigued by Guix for a while; mainly because I like the idea of Nix but was very turned off by its language, when I was exposed to it through a job I had. One thing I liked about Nix was that it was possible to use its packaging and tools without actually using the NixOS. An old employer used this instead of Docker for managing build distribution. Can the Guix stuff be used the same way?

Yes, see `guix pack` with its various backends.

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#46

I've been intrigued by Guix for a while; mainly because I like the idea of Nix but was very turned off by its language, when I was exposed to it through a job I had. One thing I liked about Nix was that it was possible to use its packaging and tools without actually using the NixOS. An old employer used this instead of Docker for managing build distribution. Can the Guix stuff be used the same way?

You can use Guix as a package manager on top of another Linux distro. I used Guix on Ubuntu for several years.

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#47
post #34
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> E.g. it could alternate between 1 black and 1 white pixel in the physical buffer or it could sometimes make two adjacent pixels the same color. This is a very odd definition of "no blur".

It works in chromium without anything I'd call blur. Here it is at 175% scale: https://i.ibb.co/DtKm69d/image.png

Chrome natively scales; however, any bitmap image shown it will be blurry.

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#48
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works in chromium without anything I'd call blur. Here it is at 175% scale: https://i.ibb.co/DtKm69d/image.png

Does the scaling change the kerning of the letters? This looks horrific! (and, yes, blurry, or "antialiased" as is custom to name it).

It doesn't look horrific at all to me

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#49
post #8
post #5

My kingdom for Wayland fractional scaling that doesn’t make my apps blurry. It makes the feature a complete nonstarter for me.

Fractional scaling, by definition, will make stuff blurry. Clean bitmap graphics and fractional scaling are incompatible requirements. Proof: consider a pattern of alternating black and white pixels: 0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255, etc. This pattern cannot be scaled to a non-integer factor without introducing gray colors (i.e., by blurring-out the pattern). If your app produces this pattern, then fractional scaling will blur…

I don't know why this guy is being downvoted, he is correct.

You cannot scale things to non-integer amounts without incurring some damage.

Blurry/fuzzyness, ringing, screen door effect, etc, you cannot avoid these no matter how smart your scaling algorithm is as long as you're upscaling it to something inbetween 100% and 200%. Nyquist-Shannon is a bitch.

Wayland made a decision way back that non-scaling apps can only be integer scaled to avoid this defect. This was the correct decision, objectively. Unfortunately, people still choose to own monitors that have weird resolutions that do not approximate 96dpi after integer scaling.

Thankfully, 200% dpi screens (ex: 3840x2160 in 24", where 24" are normally 1080p) are starting to become the norm, so someday this problem will go away: you will always be scaling at least 200%, making non-integer scaling artifacts a lot less visible.

Also, I think the parent comment that enriquto replied to might be confused and is merely asking for nearest neighbor scaling. This is not part of Wayland (which is just a protocol), and is managed entirely by the WM being used. Given Wayland is trying to enforce integer scaling, WMs allowing choosing nearest neighbor when integer scaling would be preferable in many cases.

Re: Guix on the Framework 13 AMD

#50
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fractional scaling works perfectly well on Xorg Linux and Windows, but looks blurry on Wayland Linux. Maybe it's not micrometer-scale crisp, but I can't see that. Text on Wayland is very visibly blurred. And it's not just text, but UI controls too. It looks like Wayland just renders the lower integer scale factor and then stretches the resulting bitmap image. That's bullshit.

Doesn't macOS do it the other way, rendering at the next highest integer scale factor and then downscaling to fit the display? If you can't render fractional factors natively for tech debt reasons then that's the least bad way to do it.

It does for any app that can't scale; all modern OSX apps can scale natively. I've been using that trick for integer-like scaling for years to deal with fractional scaling while preserving the quasi-aliasing ("crispness") of the source image.

However, Wayland does not prescribe any method for non-integer scaling. Any Wayland WM could choose to do the same thing, and it would be hardware accelerated essentially for free.

Both X11 and Wayland WMs typically don't use this trick, and neither does Windows.

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