> Display: 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish
I really wish system76 would start giving options for 4k displays. I have a FHD display from them, only a few months old, and it's noticeably worse than my old macbook pro display.
I really wish system76 would start giving options for 4k displays. I have a FHD display from them, only a few months old, and it's noticeably worse than my old macbook pro display.
Display Managers: When Linux boots in a 4k screen, the GRUB menu is impossible to read, so I have it memorized. I have tried many Display Managers, some recognize 4k and adapt with no issue, many do not. GDM and SDDM work well, XDM not so much, fonts are all over the place.
X11 (it has an NVIDIA card) There are some apps which refuse to adapt to 4k if you are running GNOME (and yes I use the QT_SCALE_FACTOR). Then there are apps written in WXWIDGETS. Steam menus and items are unreadable to me. Some Window Managers barely support HiDPI displays (XFCE I am looking at you). It goes on and on, by the end of the day its a very frustrating experience. GNOME (and it's derivatives) do it the best so far, KDE has issues with icon sizes and the panel. XFCE has multiple issues, so much that I gave up on it quickly and can't remember them all (and it looked awful). i3 was a little tricky at first but it can be configured to work well, but you need to adapt all the apps and bars too.
Other OSes: Even MS Windows has frequent problems with the screen magnification. macOS just gets it right, and I never had ANY of these issues, except small fonts in the firmware screen.
For my next laptop I will go back to 1920x1080 and avoid all these problems and start using AMD GPU's so I dont have to turn off secure boot and stop using X11.
weird, I have a 4k screen but the bios, grub, etc are just scaled across the screen. A bit blurry of course but definitely readable.
If I install Xfce instead of Gnome desktop will I break the magic?
tangent: Who the hell let them name Pop!_OS, such an engineer name.
[0]https://github.com/pop-os/system76-power
[1]https://blog.system76.com/post/174414833678/all-about-the-hi...
I wouldn't guess that switching away from GNOME would break hardware compatibility drivers, but I could be wrong.
Also, KDE is better in all regards. Ditch gnome.
Yup, did that, GNOME looks nice, but... KDE has some issues with HiDPI, like a mouse pointer that is way too small on window controls. Yes I did change the cursor size to 48, but it does not work with what I assume is a kwin issue. So the cursor hops from one size to another all over the place.
But why do you have to? Why doesn't it use a reasonably sized font by default?
Since it has not already happened, you may assume one of the following:
- it is in the works but has not made it to the version you are using.
- nobody else thought of that, congratulations
- it turns out to be harder than just identifying the issue
GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSans30.pcf"
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/201965/setting-the-...
..or at least if you can, no one has bothered to answer my question on how for several years.
The only problem that I have left is with Google Chrome & Vinagre: whenever I move the cursor inside their windows it stops being scaled up (therefore it becomes tiny). Used to work fine, changed during some recent update :(
I exchanged the Galago for a 14" Darter, and 1920x1280 is just right.
The Pangolin looks pretty nice to me.
Xft.dpi: 125Add these lines to /etc/default/grub: GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768x32 GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
And then run: sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
(see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB/Tips_and_tricks#Se...)
My personal pc is a 2013 MBP, so glossy screen. My work pc is a hp probook 430 g5 (~2 years old) with a matte screen.
The one that I would take out in the garden when it was sunny was the mac. Sure, I could see myself in it, I had to set the backlight to 100%, but it was possible to focus my eyes such that the text on screen was actually readable. Of course, this implies black text on white background and to sit in such a way as not to have too contrasty a background.
The matte screen of the HP was completely useless. It was just a big blotch of white, it was next to impossible to see the text. I even took out an actual external monitor once to try it out, a Dell P2415Q with a backlight that's blinding inside. Same problem.
Now sure, when there's not a high level of ambient light, the matte screen is more easy to use as there are no reflections. But as soon as there's a source of light that shines on it (and there are cases when you can't control it) it's game over.
Protip: clean the macbook screen from time to time. Even if it doesn't look dirty. I wear glasses, so I use the cleaning spray on the screen. It always amazes me how much better it is afterwards.
Pardon the choice of words, but it is the only effective way I could convey my opinion re solarized and most color schemes.
Most color schemes try too hard to differentiate everything, lack good contrast and do not aid in understanding the code. Many of them and as a good example solarized, lack good contrast. I had so many issues trying to find a good scheme, that I resorted to creating my own for Jetbrain software, and make due with some of the rainglow schemes on VSCode. The themes are mostly black text on white background and the highlights are not obtrusive so as to draw more attention that the core. In the end, I spend more effort trying to mute the loudness of the colours than reading the content.
It most certainly is not. Solarized is a low contrast theme by design and fails accessibility standards for text contrast.
Good for you is the one you enjoy using. Good for me is the one I enjoy using. Even if I didn't have a problem with Solarized's lower contrast, I would still think that its colors are hideous.
The problem for many with low-contrast themes is that they often aren't focusing on keeping contrast high. They're mostly focused on keeping contrast low. They aim to avoid being "too contrasty" without targeting being "goodly contrasty".
> color blindness?
Color blindness is its own set of problems. To the best of my knowledge I'm not colorblind. I just can't easily read poorly differentiated text unless I really crank up my screen's brightness or make the text much larger. The problem I think is mostly one of pupil physics relating to the impact of external light on pupil dilation and how that affects both focus accuracy (pinhole cameras focus perfectly without lenses) and also the amount of light entering the eye (smaller aperture means less total light, less light means less difference between light things and and dark things). Neural color perception is another issue that is related but only sort of. Or maybe there's an analog to colorblindness that we just don't talk about that deals with sensitivity to luminosity variations. IDK.
Could you elaborate on this? Maybe you've enabled font smoothing?
They convinced the world by pumping up the brightness and providing better color than other matte screens.
I mean, that OS experience, man. It's like people are living in an abusive relationship that hasn't improved since 1998.
You've never used a laptop with a decent touchpad? Or one without a loud fan? Or one with a good battery capacity?
The displays are not the only lackluster thing about System76 hardware.
But given that Linux still doesn't have perfect support for display scaling (compared to macOS, for example) and the fact that it's a 15" screen, I would still probably opt for the 1080p if given the option.
(Oddly, the external monitor will do 4K only at 30 Hz. I don't know if that is a limitation of the laptop or of the monitor.)
Also a lot of the big linux distro's now have support for this. I know Manjaro and Ubuntu can do it with minimal effort.
I spend all day with Firefox, terminals, and emacs in XMonad and they all scale perfectly with no raster UI elements. (XMonad's pixel boarder I didn't bother to scale.)
On Windows and MacOS last I checked, there was a lot more resized raster bullshit.
For my set-up at home (1080 - 4k - 1080) I have a simple script, that really was more of a `write once - use always`-experience. E.g.
xrandr --output HDMI1 --auto --scale 2x2 --pos 0x0+0+0
xrandr --output eDP1 --auto --scale 2x2 --pos 7680x0+0+0
xrandr --output DP1 --auto --mode 3840x2160 --scale 1x1 --pos 3840x0+0+0 --primary
Just a quick calculation in a repl, then called xrandr with the right scaling number, and presto, I had them exactly the same.
Then, with precise lining up of the displays, it was basically one seamless "sheet of paper". If I had a long web page or pdf spanning the displays (the laptop was directly under the monitors), then scrolling through it was quite "trippy".
I think because this was now a unified display where the bottom 1/3 was tilted differently to the top 2/3'rds (think of a curved ultrawide, but in portrait mode)
Honestly, it really was that simple.
You'll have to relog for the scaling to take effect with custom numbers for some reason
[1] https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/04/how-to-enable-hidpi-fr...
And for the niche case where you have a big disparity in DPIs of multiple displays + apps that can't adapt to DPI on the fly, scaling up is surely the wrong solution, you should be scaling down no the smaller screen.
I could readily see different filter profiles for different applications. Some of which render, and take input ques, at scaled resolutions.
What I hate a LOT more are games and applications that make any sort of connection between Pixel Aspect Ratio and a display resolution.
QT has an option to adapt the size of the widgets according to the reported screen resolution, which seems to kind of work. I don't use that many QT apps, so not sure how this turns out in practice.
However, GTK just doesn't care.
All this is on X11, I hear the situation is somewhat better on Wayland.
macOS only allowed me to run my 3440x1440 display at lower resolutions, but no _actual_ scaling support. The font is around 3mm tall.
Meanwhile, wayland scaling work wonders. The big issue being that xorg-only apps are blurry (it’s recently been fixed in master though).
For that matter, it's 1080p that's half the (linear) resolution of 4k.
System76, for me, seems to have a balance between coreboot and as much free software as possible. But also the addition of a proprietary blob full gpu.
Also the system76 cpu specs are slightly higher.
You are technically right, but to be fair, it has been barely more than one year. Apple sold their 2017 model of the 13" MacBook Air, 1440x900, in July 2019:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190708170222/https://www.apple...
> "Retina Display" has been a major marketing point for Apple for years...
Exactly. And that's all it is - marketing, particularly for egoists who want to feel like they're better however they can. The vast majority of the market, mostly those who don't use Macs, don't give a shit.
It’s completely simple: I enjoy reading content on a higher res screen. It’s clearer and easier on my eyes. That’s all there is to it.
If you like the way text looks on a Retina display just say that. Instead you're here on a thread about a PC product that you'll probably never use, acting like anyone that doesn't have a 4k display must be missing out. (You're right, I must be projecting :) Personally, I like desktop rigs with 1080p, a 5 button vertical mouse and 32-64gb of RAM in a quiet private office. I don't optimize for working on planes, trains and in meetings even though I do own a PC and Mac laptop as well...
Look at all the top listings here though- they're all FHD. Nobody cares about 4K on a laptop display - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=laptop&ref=nb_sb_noss
Some people do make use of a higher res screen, just because you don’t doesn’t make it useless. I haven’t wanted or owned an Apple computer for 10 years.
Huh? Hardly anybody sells Linux laptops, mostly not on Amazon either. I think you'll be hard pressed to find many laptops pre-configured with 32GB RAM on Amazon too.
> Some people do make use of a higher res screen, just because you don’t doesn’t make it useless.
Okay, but the person I was responding to said that 4k is "table stakes". It's clearly not. Point being - not everybody wants a 4k screen. I didn't say that they were useless to everybody, I said that essentially "most people don't want or need them".
If you are a professional and spend 10 hours a day at your computers, you will realize the quality of the screen matters a lot.
As seen developer with 1080p at 14" inch I cannot stand the ugly fonts you get.
It's not just about real estate. Just out side by side a 1440p/retina screen next to a 1080p and you will see the difference.
It's ok if you value battery, good for you. But saying there is no advantage is ridiculous.
Comparing them directly - I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Fonts, images and the UI look just as good if not better. I'll say better since I think the Mac UI is hideous.
You're right though - it's definitely not about screen real-estate because with Retina/2k/4k the OS typically has to scale everything up so you basically lose any real-estate that would have been gained in the first place. That's ridiculous IMO.
The only place I use Retina/2k/4k is for gaming and movies and I definitely am not doing either of those activities on a lowly laptop.
Retina display are simply more dense but add nothing to the screen real estate , nobody uses them at 1x I bet many don't even know that every pixel they see is actually 4 pixels on the monitor
Better have a larger monitor than a 13 inches packed with useless and expensive pixels
Actually, the lack of sharpness makes it even harder to read.
AMD integrated graphics needs a bit of explaining to me is this the performance monster variety or Intel graphics is actually faster type of deal. How many external screens can I drive with this setup? My main use case for this would be using Darktable. For the same reason I want a good HDPI screen. Otherwise, this would be a development machine (docker, misc jetbrains stuff, homebrew, some data engineering, and all the usual stuff). So looking for ram and CPU that is faster than what I have today (2018 15" MBP).
My mac book pro is literally falling apart (keyboard) at this point and I'm not eager to jump on the ARM bandwagon yet as it will mess up my tool workflow short term (Java, docker, intellij, homebrew) and cause me compatibility headaches I just don't need in my life right now. I am liking the performance though. All the software that I use runs fine on Linux. So, not a hypothetical option for me. I'd be up and running in a few hours with little to no loss of functionality.
I don't care about legacy ports; USB-C dongles are cheap and effective and I have a few in my bag. Likewise with hdmi to usb-c. What I do care about is being able to connect my Thunderbolt USB-C phone, fuji camera, hard drives, external screen, etc. I'm thinking of adding a headphone to that mix. 2 USB-3.2 ports seems like it's limited.
It has 2 legacy USB-A ports, MicroSD, HDMI and a USB-C-3.2 which I've used to run a 4K screen at 60Hz.
Price was very reasonable. I'm happy, this has stepped up my laptop CPU performance by a factor of 4, the GPU can now do all the stuff I want from a laptop, and it's compact and has good standby life.
I just looked and they don’t seem to offer the higher resolution right now on that model.
Anyway, it is a fine laptop.
Not even a 4:3 display! 1080 vertical is almost useless for coding. Seems much of their target market of Linux enthusiasts would have a lot of coders wanting better than that.
I like the way one blogger describes a 1440p vs a 1080p: “A 1440p monitor will give you 3x code windows side by side and 76 lines of code. This is a pretty big deal. You might not realize it until you’ve tried it for a while but being able to comfortably have 3 editor files open and being able to view about 50% more vertical lines of code at a glance is huge.” ( https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-pick-a-good-monitor-fo... )
Though someone else mentioned they have 4K version, not just a 1080 version! That can work better with the right scaling. The rest of the laptop looks nice.
"The genie is out of its bottle."
"The horse has left the barn."
"You can't unring a bell."
There you go. 3000x2000 on a 13.9" screen with a reasonably current processor. They have a few updated variants out there. (Was shopping for a 3:2 laptop when Dell finally got around to shipping a 16:10 7" display)
I don't think a majority of linux enthusiasts codes mainly in vim or emacs anymore.
Both Vim & Emacs have hardcore followings and buoyant communities.
Neovim + coc.nvim is massive these days... I know a lot of people who've moved from VSCode (or other big IDEs) over to terminal-based editors...