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.

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      815·
      4 months ago

      If it meant I could actually see my apps because they’re not blurry and not tiny. Then hell yeah! Luckily, it’s not a choice between all the DPI and none of the DPI.

      • Dell XPS 13 - 1920X1200
      • Lemur Pro - 1920x1200
      • Thinkpad X11 - 1920 x 1200

      It’s possible.

    • blueday@lemmy.world
      231·
      4 months ago

      Seriously, cannot go back. When MacBooks came out with retina, got one and got a program to run at native resolution. So much data and text on a screen! Looking forward to this display with 100% scale. Full stop. Everyone always says my text looks tiny but I love it! Dual 4k monitors, no scaling on my desktop Linux. My old Alienware laptop was 4k oled, gnome and KDE looked fan frickin tastic! I’m not buying pixels to not have em go to full use.

      • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
        3·
        4 months ago

        Hell yeah. Wonder if you have like 20/10 vision or something that helps you with the size. I love love the look of native 4K but it strains my eyes and brain to read 😥

        • blueday@lemmy.world
          3·
          4 months ago

          Actually I have really REALLY bad vision, but my glasses bring me to around 20/20. Maybe as I get older I’ll start scaling up. Or just buy bigger sized monitors!

  • warmaster@lemmy.world
    431·
    4 months ago

    96 DPI should be a choice, agreed. But it’s a software issue when an app or a framework doesn’t display well on HIDPI.

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      314·
      4 months ago

      Agreed! Not saying it’s not a software issue. Of course the software is broken. Of course I wish it was updated.

      But, Framework seeing the landscape and picking hardware with known issues is a bad choice. They could offer lower DPI and eliminate entire pages of workarounds and half fixes.

      Yes, high DPI should work, but it doesn’t everywhere. That’s just the reality, I wish it wasn’t.

      • gazter@aussie.zone
        6·
        4 months ago

        Hardware should lead. It’s easier to upgrade the software to make the hardware work, then it is to upgrade the hardware when the software decides to support it.

  • nroth@lemmy.world
    71·
    4 months ago

    GNOME sucks, both in their community engagement culture, and actual look. I’ve never liked their culture, but they used to have a superior desktop IMO.

  • anhydrous@lemmy.world
    4·
    4 months ago

    Huh, I actually run Plasma at 100% with my FW13 2256x1504. I didn’t know there was a new display, but if I had it, 100% wouldn’t cut it anymore. Frankly, for such a small display, I wouldn’t desire a higher resolution than what I have in the FW13, even if all the software scaled properly.

  • Pantsofmagic@lemmy.world
    8·
    4 months ago

    I installed one of these new displays this past weekend and it looks fantastic in Linux. Granted I’ve only tried Plasma so far on Wayland but that’s because I really don’t find Gnome usable. It looks good at 200% though and a similar scale to 150% on the old display.

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      It’s all right otherwise. Not phenomenal, but not crap. The specs you can get with other laptops. The hardware feel isn’t as good as a Dell XPS or an X1 Carbon. The expansion card stuff is kinda cool, but other laptops have ports too. I’ve never swapped out the cards.

      The main reason I bought this laptop is repairability. If that’s not your main priority, then I probably wouldn’t recommend this laptop.

      If you want to use this laptop with Linux and not spend time fixing hardware compatibility issues, then I definitely would not recommend this laptop. Definitely get a Dell XPS for a Linux laptop that Just Works.

        • Darorad@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          I agree with pretty much everything they’ve said, though I’ve gotten more use out of the swappable parts. I have a desktop I use for things I need a powerful system for, but being able to swap in the GPU when traveling is great.

          When I’m at home I have basically everything on USB C and the empty expansion bay.

          When I travel I swap in the GPU and add an HDMI port and some USB a ports.

          If you don’t have stuff set up like I do I agree it’s mostly just a reparability / upgradeability thing.

      • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        4 months ago

        Framework would be an instant buy for me if not the 3:2 screen. I’m not a developer, so there’s no upside for me

        I just want the repairability

        • WFH@lemm.eeEnglish
          11·
          4 months ago

          After spending a few months on the FW16, going back to a 16:9 laptop feels… wrong. Like there’s a ton of vertical space missing. Everything except watching movies benefits from a little bit more vertical space.

      • Fliegenpilzgünni@slrpnk.net
        2·
        4 months ago

        If you want to use this laptop with Linux and not spend time fixing hardware compatibility issues, then I definitely would not recommend this laptop. Definitely get a Dell XPS for a Linux laptop that Just Works.

        Have you tried the -framework images from uBlue?

      • p3n@lemmy.world
        2·
        4 months ago

        This has not been my experience with my FW16. I also have an XPS for work, and had a Gigabyte Aero before that, but I would hands down take the the FW16 over the XPS 9510. While the XPS doesn’t have any major issues running Linux (though I am unhappy with the trackpad), I haven’t had any issues running Linux on the FW16 either, and I absolutely love having whatever ports I want available. I really missed the great port selection I had on the Aero, which made the XPS painful for me to use (I am so sick of dongles). I use my FW16 for a bunch of different requirements and have a ton of ports for it: ( 4x Ethernet, 3x USB-A, 3x USB-C, 2x HDMI, 2x DP, 2x MicroSD, 2x 3.5mm). Being able to reconfigure on the fly for whatever my workflow is for the day has been great.

        Also, something that really galls me about working on the XPS series vs. the Latitude series, is that even though the XPS is supposed to be the premium line, the Latitudes are much nicer to work on. For example, Latitudes have captive screws on the back cover whereas the XPSes don’t, and they also have razor sharp un-polished edges on the covers (always great to have to clean the blood off your motherboard traces before you can power it back on. )

        As for the display issues, I can’t speak to that because I use Hyprland and don’t have a DE, but don’t see any issues.

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
    1801·
    4 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.

    • stealth_cookies@lemmy.world
      55·
      4 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·
        4 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.

        • Crashumbc@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          4 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’

        • psvrh@lemmy.ca
          191·
          4 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·
            4 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?

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1314·
      4 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·
        4 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.

    • bisby@lemmy.worldEnglish
      861·
      4 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.

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
      23·
      4 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·
        4 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·
          4 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

  • serenissi@lemmy.world
    27·
    4 months ago

    scaled by system/themselves … looks like those are x11 apps. why is firefox into this? run it as native wayland with MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
    5·
    4 months ago

    Honestly I might be dumb, but I don’t understand why I can’t scale any app individually to custom fractions. Why don’t DEs add this as a feature?

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
      171·
      4 months ago

      Scaling is the future, too low set resolution was always the hack…

      • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
        118·
        4 months ago

        No, the problem is, built-in displays have too high resolution for their usecase (because vendors can demand more cash for it). Things don’t get less sharp if you scale that (via resolution) to comfortale size, your angular resolution doesn’t get better just with that. You don’t lose pixels you can’t see.
        The hack is the solution that sometimes works and sometimes not, which is the case with software scaling.

        And your “future” is at least five years ago.

        edit: “too low set resolution”, what are you talking about? It’s too high originally, heating your notebook and lowering battery live for nothing.

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
          82·
          4 months ago

          🤣🤣WTF are you talking

          Setting scale down makes everything looks shit! Are you blind?! The pixels are fucking gigantic if you do this. I go through up if I have to use lowDPI screens, evry usecase demands at least 2k or better 3kfor me (at 14”). Speaking desktop 32” 4k it is.

          • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
            13·
            4 months ago

            Usecase matters for pixel density. You have the phone close to your face, 400 dpi are just enough here. Notebook, more far away, is about 300 dpi ideal. Desktop, about 200 dpi. This is why a TV, usually 3m+ away, has about 65" in 4k. But if you sit 1m before your TV, you see big pixels.

            Now, for notebook, usual size of 13" to 17", resolution between 1280x and 2560x is good. You see no pixels, no battery draining and fan noise, and no issues with some tool not/weird scaling.

            Ah you know what, please read here.

            • Petter1@lemm.ee
              1·
              4 months ago

              1280 is nearly “2k” being typically 1440, and yea that’s “good” but I still see some pixel framing, to be "great” it need to be at least more than 2500 for me