Wuuttup. I’m here complaining again about Framework’s Linux unfriendly display. The new one this time.

https://frame.work/products/display-kit?v=FRANJF0001

Old display, 2256 x 1504 (3:2)

GNOME

100% scale

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Everything is tiny
  • Unusable

100% scale + large text accessibility

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Most apps scale appropriately
  • Some apps don’t respect GNOME’s large text setting (Alacritty)

125% scale

  • Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)

200% scale

  • Everything is way too big
  • Unusable

Plasma

100% scale

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Everything is tiny
  • Unusable

125% scale + Apply scaling themselves

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Most apps scale appropriate
  • Some apps can’t scale themselves and look tiny (Picard)

125% scale + Scaled by system

  • Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)

200% scale

  • Everything is way too big
  • Unusable

New display, 2880 x 1920 (3:2)

GNOME

100% scale

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Everything is tiny
  • Unusable

100% scale + large text accessibility

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Most apps scale appropriately
  • Some apps don’t respect GNOME’s large text setting (Alacritty)
  • Everything is tiny

150% scale

  • Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)

200% scale

  • Everything is way too big
  • Unusable

Plasma

100% scale

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Everything is tiny
  • Unusable

150% scale + Apply scaling themselves

  • Nothing looks blurry
  • Some apps can’t scale themselves, but look a little better here? (Picard)

150% scale + Scaled by system

  • Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)

200% scale

  • Everything is way too big
  • Unusable

tl;dr

In the old display, GNOME at 100% + large text was the best compromise. In the new display, Plasma at 150% + Apply scaling themselves is the best compromise.

Interestingly, Picard scaling itself looks super tiny in the old display, but in the new display it looks… better. It’s still not correctly scaled like native Wayland apps, but it’s better.

Warning

If you can’t stomach moving from GNOME to Plasma, then 🚨 DO NOT BUY THE NEW DISPLAY 🚨. The new display is worse for GNOME.

Once again

I am once again begging Framework to just give us a damn regular DPI display that works! Without workarounds. Without forcing users on specific DEs. Without forcing users to stop using their favorite apps. This new display has basically all of the flaws as the previous one.

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
    1791·
    3 months ago

    I am once again begging Framework to just give us a damn regular DPI display that works!

    Bottom Skinner is right, though. It’s 2024. HiDPI has to be supported by all toolkits, desktops, and applications at this point. There are no excuses. Even 1080p on a 14" laptop screen warrants 125% scaling, IMO.

    • bisby@lemmy.worldEnglish
      861·
      3 months ago

      “This hardware works fine and even has compatible software that it works great with. But I’m going to prefer the broken software for other reasons. And that means it’s the hardware’s fault.”

      Software that is built to be compatible with a wide variety of hardware should be compatible with a wide variety of hardware.

      If software can’t handle a 16.5:16 aspect ratio, then that’s bad software. I don’t care how weird of a niche thing that is… just make your software abstract enough to handle those cases.

      It’s 2024, any resolution/aspect ratio/DPI combo should be supportable. There’s enough variety of monitors out there that we should have a solution for handling things on the fly without needing to have a predefined solution.

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.world
      55·
      3 months ago

      Scaling for HiDPI displays is unacceptable on every desktop OS, it is crazy that so little effort has been put into making the experience of modern monitors good.

      • Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        453·
        3 months ago

        I feel this is one of those few sectors, like wifi compatibility, where Windows completely destroys Linux, MacOS, and BSD. As someone who regularly switches between operating systems on bare metal & 4K, trying to use a HiDPI display on *nix is painful and will only kinda work with caveats after 100 hacks (as seen here), whereas Windows has a zoom slider that just works.

        • psvrh@lemmy.ca
          191·
          3 months ago

          macOS seems to handle this pretty well, honestly. About the only issue I have is XQuartz and even it’s pretty good.

          What’s the issue you’re seeing?

          • Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            138·
            3 months ago

            Scaling, MacOS has no actual scaling it will only lower the resolution, and using Retina on anything that isn’t sold in an Apple store (and even then) just simply does not work. It essentially has no HiDPI support past using native resolution with slightly larger text that is not adhered to by most of the operating system itself. I am at a loss at why you think this is well handled, what criteria are you using?

            • devilish@lemmy.world
              2·
              3 months ago

              What the hell are you talking about? You are completely wrong on this. macOS has had high DPI support since 2012, when the first Retina display Macbook Pro came out. Applications bundle 1x and 2x sized assets, and fractional scaling is achieved by shrinking the 2x upscale back down to match the selected fractional scale.

            • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 months ago

              I’m surprised to be learning this, but I’ve never tried to use a non-Apple HiDPI display with my Macs. Weird that it works so well on the HiDPI built-in displays and their external displays, but won’t bother to make it work right with non-Apple displays.

        • Crashumbc@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          3 months ago

          Interesting, as someone running 4k, p1440, and a 1600x1200 three monitor setup, this makes me nervous about switching.

          I never even considered Linux having scaling issues in 24’

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
      23·
      3 months ago

      🤣on 14” 1080 i would need 50% scaling to make it usable for me, since I can not work with such a tiny space for my apps… You can’t even use two apps side by side on 1080 these days, since everything is designed for higher DPI.

      And even on 100% is the font so blurry that it is hard to read. Got do I hate 1080p 🤣🤣

      Everything I use needs high DPI like 2k to 3k on 14” - 16”, everything bigger needs at least 4k

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
        31·
        3 months ago

        I get needing more space for certain workflows but if fonts are blurry on 1080p at 100% there’s something wrong with your setup. Misconfigured font renderer or so. Configure your FreeType to set font smoothing to sharp and hinting to slight. If your distribution has other defaults, file a bug report with them. Back in the day when screens had a lower pixel density (I had 15" 720p once), FreeType might have been configured “smoother” because it would match print output closer.

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
          1·
          3 months ago

          I have no Linux on any 1080 screen… There were a test laptop With 1080p in my office (windows) and we still have some 1200p screen in use (I avoid them)

          The Font is definitely why better readable on 4k, even at half the size compared to 1080p

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1314·
      3 months ago

      HiDPI has to be supported by all toolkits, desktops, and applications at this point. There are no excuses.

      I mean… yeah, I agree. Would you mind sending that email to the millions of devs around the world? Not sure if they’re aware of this.

      I just want to be able to read my screen. 😭

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
        442·
        3 months ago

        Would you mind sending that email to the millions of devs around the world?

        Yes, I mind. For Qt5 applications, basic HiDPI support can be patched in with a single line. I actually did that for a handful of applications, tested them, and then submitted pull requests on Github. I cannot program, so all I could do is to copy and paste that one line from the Qt documentation. It’s not much but I already did my part.