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HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue

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  HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Jerome BENOIT <sphericaltriangle@rezozer.net> - 2017-12-24 11:50 +0100
    Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Anders Andersson <pipatron@gmail.com> - 2017-12-24 13:50 +0100
      Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz> - 2017-12-27 23:50 +0100
        Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Doug <dmcgarrett@optonline.net> - 2018-01-14 04:10 +0100
          Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> - 2018-01-14 06:10 +0100
    Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2017-12-24 21:10 +0100
      Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue Jerome BENOIT <sphericaltriangle@rezozer.net> - 2017-12-25 06:50 +0100
    Re: HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue solitone <solitone@mail.com> - 2017-12-25 07:10 +0100

#190243 — HiDPI migration: desktop environment issue

Hello, I am currently migrating to a HiDPI box (akda Retina box).

Since the arrival of GNOME3, I have used Xfce as an alternative to GNOME[2]:
I have been happy so far with this choice. Right now, I migrating to
a retina box: it appears, unfortunately, that Xfce support for HiDPI is low.
small (if not tiny) icons there, big fonts here; and so forth.
I have tried to fix it to stick to Xfce; after all Xfce is lightweight.
But the issue is that X is not yet ready to manage HiDPI properly:
a lot of tweaks are needed to get something almost readable.

I read that Cinnamon and MATE, both former clones of GNOME[2], have HiDPI in mind:
is there any other possibility ? which one is the best in terms of weight and HiDPI support ?

Thanks in advance,
Jerome

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#190244

On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 11:24 AM, Jerome BENOIT
<sphericaltriangle@rezozer.net> wrote:
> Hello, I am currently migrating to a HiDPI box (akda Retina box).
>
> Since the arrival of GNOME3, I have used Xfce as an alternative to GNOME[2]:
> I have been happy so far with this choice. Right now, I migrating to
> a retina box: it appears, unfortunately, that Xfce support for HiDPI is low.
> small (if not tiny) icons there, big fonts here; and so forth.
> I have tried to fix it to stick to Xfce; after all Xfce is lightweight.
> But the issue is that X is not yet ready to manage HiDPI properly:
> a lot of tweaks are needed to get something almost readable.
>
> I read that Cinnamon and MATE, both former clones of GNOME[2], have HiDPI in mind:
> is there any other possibility ? which one is the best in terms of weight and HiDPI support ?

If you can pull yourself from a Windows 95-era start menu and
always-visible panels, try the natural and more modern and updated
successor: Gnome 3. Really.

I've never found the claims of Xfce being lightweight to hold up under
scrutiny. It's often more sluggish than Gnome 3 on the clients I've
compared.

Right now I'm having the most issues with Xwayland here on debian
testing, but that should be orthogonal to the choice of desktop
environment. I should start another rant about debian's handling of
wayland in a different thread I guess! :)

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#190368

On 25/12/17 01:44, Anders Andersson wrote:
> If you can pull yourself from a Windows 95-era start menu and
> always-visible panels, try the natural and more modern and updated
> successor: Gnome 3. Really.

I found this "modern and updated" interface to have poor usability. It 
felt to me like an attempt to push the Android UI, optimised for tiny 
touch screens, on to the desktop.

I like always-visible panels on my desktop, including a pager, and Gnome 
2 and XFCE give them to me, in multiple highly-configurable instances, 
with plugins. I found that Gnome 3 configuration was quite limited and 
required me to hack JavaScript at the system level. It has been a while 
since I tried a pure Gnome 3 and it might have improved.

I saw a Windows 10 machine a few days ago and it had an always-visible 
panel with something that seemed to work just like the like the start 
menu. Are Windows 10 desktops configured to have this by default? It 
might be that Microsoft are returning to the successful desktop 
interface design of previous generations. Perhaps Gnome 4 will as well?

> I've never found the claims of Xfce being lightweight to hold up under
> scrutiny. It's often more sluggish than Gnome 3 on the clients I've
> compared.

Does Gnome 3 work over VNC yet? I had such problems with Unity, but XFCE 
just worked.

Kind regards,

-- 
Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/>
New Zealand

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#191050

On 12/27/2017 05:43 PM, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
> On 25/12/17 01:44, Anders Andersson wrote:
>> If you can pull yourself from a Windows 95-era start menu and
>> always-visible panels, try the natural and more modern and updated
>> successor: Gnome 3. Really.
>
> I found this "modern and updated" interface to have poor usability. It 
> felt to me like an attempt to push the Android UI, optimised for tiny 
> touch screens, on to the desktop.
>
> I like always-visible panels on my desktop, including a pager, and 
> Gnome 2 and XFCE give them to me, in multiple highly-configurable 
> instances, with plugins. I found that Gnome 3 configuration was quite 
> limited and required me to hack JavaScript at the system level. It has 
> been a while since I tried a pure Gnome 3 and it might have improved.
>
> I saw a Windows 10 machine a few days ago and it had an always-visible 
> panel with something that seemed to work just like the like the start 
> menu. Are Windows 10 desktops configured to have this by default? It 
> might be that Microsoft are returning to the successful desktop 
> interface design of previous generations. Perhaps Gnome 4 will as well?
>
>> I've never found the claims of Xfce being lightweight to hold up under
>> scrutiny. It's often more sluggish than Gnome 3 on the clients I've
>> compared.
>
> Does Gnome 3 work over VNC yet? I had such problems with Unity, but 
> XFCE just worked.
>
> Kind regards,
>
Well, I'm using KDE5 ("plasma") and I like it, but Windows 10 comes 
stock with a really gross interface--great big boxes on the screen for 
just a few apps. You can abolish that junk with a free
app that makes the screen look and act like the Win 7 desktop, or one or 
two other earlier Windows versions. It's called Classic Shell, and I 
heard that it has been taken over by some open source
group, but I have no further info. There's probably another similar app 
someplace. Fortunately, the Windows upgrade does not delete it, as I was 
afraid it might. (I very seldom use Windows,
but I did upgrade to the latest slop just a few days ago.)

--doug

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#191052

On 13/01/18 07:02 PM, Doug wrote:

> Well, I'm using KDE5 ("plasma") and I like it, but Windows 10 comes
> stock with a really gross interface--great big boxes on the screen for
> just a few apps. You can abolish that junk with a free
> app that makes the screen look and act like the Win 7 desktop, or one or
> two other earlier Windows versions. It's called Classic Shell, and I
> heard that it has been taken over by some open source
> group, but I have no further info. There's probably another similar app
> someplace. Fortunately, the Windows upgrade does not delete it, as I was
> afraid it might. (I very seldom use Windows,
> but I did upgrade to the latest slop just a few days ago.)

Windows really blew it with HiDPI, which is why those apps are so ugly. 
  Rumour has it that it took Microsoft three tries just to get Notepad 
right, let alone their other apps.  I ran into this recently (I write a 
lot of Windows stuff) where my program, which spaces buttons evenly 
across the screen, had them run off the right-hand side when run on a 
machine with a HiDPI monitor.  It seems that with a HiDPI screen, 
Windows lies to you about screen co-ordinates, presumably in an attempt 
to fudge things before you realize what's going on.  Similarly, if you 
ask Windows 10 to tell you what version it is, it lies and says it's 
Windows 8.1.

Microsoft's new policy apparently is "You can't handle the truth!" 
Let's hope Linux developers don't make the same mistake.

Thanks for the tip about Classic Shell.  If I'm ever sentenced to use 
Windows 10 it might make life a bit more bearable.  (On my own machines 
- which run Debian - I run Windows XP under VirtualBox.  IMHO Windows' 
usability, such as it is, peaked somewhere between 2000 and XP and has 
been going downhill ever since.)

-- 
cgibbs@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs)

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#190250

On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 02:24:17PM +0400, Jerome BENOIT wrote:
> Hello, I am currently migrating to a HiDPI box (akda Retina box).
> 
> Since the arrival of GNOME3, I have used Xfce as an alternative to GNOME[2]:
> I have been happy so far with this choice. Right now, I migrating to
> a retina box: it appears, unfortunately, that Xfce support for HiDPI is low.
> small (if not tiny) icons there, big fonts here; and so forth.
> I have tried to fix it to stick to Xfce; after all Xfce is lightweight.
> But the issue is that X is not yet ready to manage HiDPI properly:
> a lot of tweaks are needed to get something almost readable.

I only found three tweaks needed for XFCE:

1. Change the DPI setting upwards.
2. Increase the size of the panel bars.
3. Select a theme that scales title bars and buttons with the
   size of the font.

-dsr-

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#190254

Thanks for your reply.

On 25/12/17 00:05, Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 02:24:17PM +0400, Jerome BENOIT wrote:
>> Hello, I am currently migrating to a HiDPI box (akda Retina box).
>>
>> Since the arrival of GNOME3, I have used Xfce as an alternative to GNOME[2]:
>> I have been happy so far with this choice. Right now, I migrating to
>> a retina box: it appears, unfortunately, that Xfce support for HiDPI is low.
>> small (if not tiny) icons there, big fonts here; and so forth.
>> I have tried to fix it to stick to Xfce; after all Xfce is lightweight.
>> But the issue is that X is not yet ready to manage HiDPI properly:
>> a lot of tweaks are needed to get something almost readable.
> 
> I only found three tweaks needed for XFCE:
> 
> 1. Change the DPI setting upwards.

tried:
xdpyinfo now gives the expected resolution (220 dpi) and screen dimension.
Nevertheless, in the /v/l/Xorg.0.log, DIP is still set to 96 .

> 2. Increase the size of the panel bars.

done

> 3. Select a theme that scales title bars and buttons with the
>    size of the font.

I switched to the Default-hdpi style.
BTW, is there any list of HiDPI compatible theme ?

I also  managed to get readable fonts for my xterm consoles, and gvim.

So far, I could not fix the size of the button/icons for gvim and evince:
any hint ?


Thanks, Jerome


> 
> -dsr-
> 

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#190255

On 24/12/17 11:24, Jerome BENOIT wrote:
> I read that Cinnamon and MATE, both former clones of GNOME[2], have HiDPI in mind:
> is there any other possibility ? 

I use KDE's Plasma, which supports HiDPI pretty well.

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