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
    1771·
    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
      851·
      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
      54·
      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?

        • 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.

  • testingtesting123@discuss.tchncs.de
    691·
    3 months ago

    Blurry apps come from xwayland compatibility. Firefox and alacritty (or other terminal like wezterm or kitty) have native wayland, with no blurry check Archwiki for example HiDPI. With Spotify, live with it or use spot (gtk client). Hopefully next gnome release incorporate something like plasma, and then ctrl+ native in spotify increase its size.

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      375·
      3 months ago

      Blurry and tiny apps come from Framework’s poor choice of display. Other laptops don’t have this problem.

      Yes, I’m aware of software-side issues, but it’s still their fault for seeing the software issues and then picking a broken display anyway.

      framework skinner

      • alonely0@programming.dev
        711·
        3 months ago

        Lmao it’s not framework’s fault if linux can’t handle hidpi well. The display ain’t broken, linux is. Btw I have a display of the same resolution on my laptop, and I have had zero issues on plasma at 125% scaling (most apps of my apps are wayland-native) and gnome works great after setting it to 125% via dconf too.

        • orangeboats@lemmy.world
          111·
          3 months ago

          It’s not even Linux’s fault. Plenty of apps support HiDPI on Linux.

          It’s the developers who still think that LoDPI-only is still acceptable when it’s already 2024.

      • hobovision@lemm.ee
        15·
        3 months ago

        Other laptops don’t have this problem.

        You can’t be serious. It’s 2024, and my laptop from 10 years ago needs 125% scaling at least. Get real.

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    691·
    3 months ago

    So hardware manifacturers need to adapt to XOrg now? LOL the reason that some apps dont scale right even on Plasma is that they are probably not Wayland native yet.

    And GNOME still doesnt have stable fractional scaling, unlike Plasma.

    Hardware vendors shouldnt need to adapt to GNOME too.

    • orangeboats@lemmy.world
      381·
      3 months ago

      Agreed. HiDPI is the way to go and we should appreciate Framework for putting that in their laptops instead of continuing the use of shitty 1366x768 screens.

      Xorg is the reason why OP is facing the scaling issues. OP, try to force the apps to run on native Wayland if they support it but don’t default to it. The Wayland page on Arch wiki has instructions on that. Immensely improved my HiDPI experience.

    • devfuuu@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 months ago

      I finally stopped having problems on Wayland plasma after the release some months ago that included fixes to fractional scaling. Me after many months and years complaining about wayland not working properly now can say that I can barely notice the difference and things work as expected. Had to cry to make discord and zoom work for screen share and zoom still crashes but at least kinda works. But that’s different than blurry fonts at least 😅

      • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
        5·
        3 months ago

        Wayland forced me to discover third party discord apps. Honestly I consider it a win overall lol

  • TurboWafflz@lemmy.world
    46·
    3 months ago

    I have basically zero issues with fractional scaling with Gnome on Wayland, I thing you probably have something configured wrong.

    Here’s a screenshot of how a few programs look for me with 125% scaling on my original framework display. The only thing slightly blurry is spotify but it’s not enough to be noticeable in normal use. 1000008665

    Edit: Looks like lemmy actually compressed my screenshot a fair bit but I think you can still tell that things are scaling properly

    • Blastboom Strice@mander.xyz
      3·
      3 months ago

      Ayy, beast in black! Saw those guys live (and barely knew them, lol). They make good music (their “beast in black” song seems to be my favourite).

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
        2·
        3 months ago

        😮i already was happy finding a new dubstep artist seeing that cover only zo find out that it was metal🤣

          • Petter1@lemm.ee
            1·
            3 months ago

            cloZee, LSDream, Dirt Monkey, subtronic, Zingara, liquid stranger, svdden death, mellow head, Griz, Jantsen, SoDown, LUZCID, champagne drip, Ganja White Night, Zomboy, Blunts and Blondes, Austeria

            And some more are what I am listening most right now. I think most of it is 2020 and newer, so not exactly oldScool, but, even tho I like Skrilex as well, would not place them into the same category 🤔 dubstep is very diverse…

            But is funny, get this question a lot, and always be like 🤷🏻‍♀️non of both, really

  • warmaster@lemmy.world
    431·
    3 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·
      3 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·
        3 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.

    • blueday@lemmy.world
      231·
      3 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·
        3 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·
          3 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!

    • jg1i@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      715·
      3 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.

  • serenissi@lemmy.world
    26·
    3 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

  • lengau
    21·
    3 months ago

    Weird… My experience with the old display is quite different

    Plasma

    100% Scale

    • Nothing looks blurry
    • Everything a perfect size
    • Wonderful
    • Petter1@lemm.ee
      2·
      3 months ago

      I guess you are working closer to the screen, but I feel you, I use 100% on 2000:3000 surface book 3 screen as well as 100% on 4k 32” and I love it 😂 but I think I am the only one in our office…

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        I bought 1440p instead of 4k last year on purpose because I didn’t want to have to deal with scaling. Plus it was cheaper and I need less power to run games on it lol

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
          2·
          3 months ago

          For gaming, 1440 is often better than 4k because the refresh rate is generally higher with lower resolution at the same price point. I don’t even know if a 4k 240Hz screen already is payable 😂🤑

  • Unboxious@ani.socialEnglish
    17·
    3 months ago

    You want hardware manufacturers to provide shitty screens in perpetuity just so Linux devs can avoid implementing proper scaling? Yeah, no.

  • Damage@feddit.it
    14·
    3 months ago

    Just to make sure, have you logged out and back in after applying the scaling? Some apps look blurry until you do that. Try to avoid quarter scaling, no x25% or x75%…

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
    11·
    3 months ago

    I really hope that all Linux desktop software gets scaling support soon. Can’t live with only integer scaling increments

  • WFH@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    3 months ago

    Just tried 100% + large text on Gnome, it feels much better than 125% scaling, thanks for letting us know it’s a possibility!

  • Pantsofmagic@lemmy.world
    8·
    3 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.