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Comment by noisy_boy | Hacker News Reader

I'm using a mixed monitor setting on KDE on Pop_OS (I know, I added KDE to Pop_OS just to try Plasma and loved it). It all works on X11 but the jank is true - I am indeed afraid of any plugging/unplugging to avoid disturbing the setup (using a Lenovo thunderbolt dock with Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2 which uses Nvidia MaxQ graphics).

Maybe I'll go back to using straight-up Kubuntu (or even just Debian) - the only worry is quality of support for Nvidia card - Pop_OS folks were the only ones with a fully working Nvidia setup when I started using it but maybe by now, Kubuntu and/or Debian also has similar level of support. Would be great if someone using Kubuntu/Debian on a mixed monitor setup with an laptop with Nvidia graphics can share their experience - ideally with Wayland since I'm interested in moving to it for better multi-monitor support.

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Are you doing different scaling per monitor in X11? Different resolutions is fine. I ran many different monitor sizes and resolutions with X11 and i3wm. Just configured everything with xrandr and just had a few scripts that I ran depending where/if I was docked.

But per monitor scaling seemed impossible. I just gave up and ran some monitors at a lower resolution so that the DPI was similar.

Yes, that is exactly the problem that KDE+Wayland solves for me. The 8K 32" is way higher ppi than a normal 4K (mine are 27") so you really need per-monitor scaling factor.

I used to run everything at 200%, and then the 8K looked great, but the 4Ks were all huge and clownish, like scaled up 17" screens. It worked, but it wasn't good.

> Are you doing different scaling per monitor in X11?

I do this, but only some applications cooperate. I couldn't even figure out how to configure it right on kde even though the underlying capability is there.

It definitely isn't impossible, but the popular toolkits make it much harder than they should.

Yeah, I didn't really mention it but my days usually involve working all day on Linux, but then switching to the Mac (using the same set of monitors, via a KVM switch) in the evening to do non-work stuff.

So that switch has to really work and not like... work most of the time, but jank out on a regular basis. (Which I found to be the case with X11.)

KDE+Plasma works with this daily routine too (although it is better to lock the screen first so it doesn't have to try to re-layout a bunch of windows).

It's probably more an issue with the thunderbolt dock. I had the same exact problems and they were traced to bugs in the dock firmware. You can try updating the firmware and see if that fixes it for you. Unfortunately, Lenovo bios/firmware has been really bad for Linux in the last few years.

Do you use PopOS with KDE on System76 hardware? I tried that and the trackpad was not fully functional.

No I use Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2 - trackpad et all work fine (I think I also get the fingerprint reader to work but it was a somewhat hit and miss affair).

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