> But hey, if you still can’t properly support 4K scaling in 2020, it’s never going to happen.

I have a 4K Ubuntu laptop from Dell. The text and GUI automatically scaled to the right size (except for one old program). And I plugged in an external 4K monitor using HDMI and it just worked.

I'm sure there are hardware configurations that don't work as nicely, because Linux supports a ton of weird hardware. But it's easy to buy high-quality Linux systems.

"Works for me (TM)"

Linux Desktop Evangelism playbook hasn't changed since 2000.

How is it different than "Doesn't work for me TM"

The linux fanboy definition of works is either works out of the box or can be made to work.

The opposite position seems to be must work out of the box on any of 50 distros on any hardware I buy at Walmart AND must invent time travel to change the fact that it didn't work 7 years ago on the Acer I bought from that weirdo on Craigslist the only time I actually tried installing it.

Take High DPI

It kinda looks like cinnamon for example supports HiDPI out of the box but all the knobs are there if you want to tweak how different things scale.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI

If on your distro something isn't configured correctly for 4k screens the fanboy says its workable because there is a readily available resource that will tell you how to achieve the result you desire.

The anti fanboy will throw up their hands and say Linux sucks.

An argument can be made that that this isn't good enough for "grandma" or "regular people". I see problems in consumer electronics and windows that are too hard for grandma or "regular people" all the time.

If they don't want to install and configure it presumably they can pay Lenovo or Dell to do it for them just as they do presently. If it comes with a high dpi screen presumably they will configure it for such.

> If on your distro something isn't configured correctly for 4k screens the fanboy says its workable because there is a readily available resource that will tell you how to achieve the result you desire.

> The anti fanboy will throw up their hands and say Linux sucks.

This is a strange false dichotomy

I think the implication was that it isn't a dichotomy. There is a third group of people who are neither fanboys nor anti fanboys.

Perhaps I should have said hater. Yes there is a massive group in the middle that doesn't have a dog in the race only techies and nerds have favorite OS like other people have sports teams. On average people are buying boxes that come with software and using whatever came with their box.

Because it's the only retort to the unfalsifiable 'it doesn't work for me'.

Anybody who uses Windows 10 with any regularity will also run into things that just do not work: for me, recently, it's Windows deciding that I want my sound to output to my monitor (which doesn't have speakers). The only reason Windows issues are treated differently to Linux's is that it's treated as the default.

Your monitor might have an audio out port. That's why my monitor is the default sound output when I have my Mac connected.

It doesn't sound like a Windows bug unless your monitor is actually incapable of outputting sound at all. In that case, I'd wager your monitor is advertising sound when it has none.

I'm not saying that Windows bugs don't exist (I've run into lots), but I'm guessing that this isn't a Windows bug.

It doesn't what my monitor does: I disable the output to it in Windows every time. And every time, Windows re-enables it.

That does sound like a Windows bug. In that case, disregard my previous message.

You can't be Windows user on Linux.

At least in this issue someone resolved the problem. That's good signal, Linux user would ask how - hardware, distribution, tutorials, links etc.

You see ignorance. It is not about him, it is about you.

A friend of mine who is a sw developer who worked on Linux for years got a 4K display and then switched to Windows because many apps don’t play well with resolution scaling.

Did he use a “full featured” DE? From what I’ve seen, if you are not on KDE or Gnome, scaling support is normally up to yourself.

Every time someone says "[basic feature] does not work on Linux", someone else comes and says it's always worked fine for him. I'm not saying you are lying, but you are probably in a minority. I've also had problems with scaling on Linux and I gave up on it. Also, having two screens with different scaling was completely unsupported, unlike on Windows.

> someone else comes and says it's always worked fine for him. I'm not saying you are lying, but you are probably in a minority.

Here's my "secret," if it helps. I buy laptops with Linux pre-installed from a supported vendor, I run Ubuntu LTS in the default configuration, and I only customize a tiny number of things. This has worked pretty well for me for over a decade. (Before that, I had more issues.)

I don't feel like installing Linux onto random Windows laptops is a good use of my time. Similarly, if I were to choose some unusual distro or desktop environment, that would usually mean more hassle. So I don't.

> Also, having two screens with different scaling was completely unsupported, unlike on Windows.

Yup, that's the biggest limitation I've seen. That's one reason I ended up giving away my ancient external monitor and getting a new 4k. That way I can use the same scaling on the internal and external monitor.

And if I'm going to make a major hardware purchase, I usually Google to see if it works with Linux. This matters mostly for things like drawing tablets.

The most probable difference between these two people is that the first one installs Linux on a supported hardware (or buys preinstalled Linux), while the second one takes their random hardware and expects that Linux will work on it flawlessly.

Why do you assume they’re a minority? If every time someone mentions something didn’t work, 10 other people explain that it can actually work, maybe that should be telling you something different.

Because a lot of people don't report that it doesn't work, they just stop using things that don't work. Those that do report it get "Works for me (TM)!" --or perhaps "Try a different distro (TM)!"-- in response instead of anything helpful, so why bother?

Even someone like me has long since stopped reporting bugs to Linux Desktop projects because of the above, and the fact that a lot of times the bug is already in the issue tracker and has been for years so clearly no one gives a damn anyway.

People respond like that because they genuinely have been using Linux desktops for decades, and have been perfectly productive using them for work and play. And then someone posts something like 'I tried installing Ubuntu but thing X didn't work, how can anyone do real work on this joke operating system? I stopped using it immediately' and they just want to provide a different perspective.

Personally I bought a highly-recommended Windows laptop a few years ago and had to stop using the OS because both sleep and the Intel wifi drivers simply didn't work. Yet if I tried to use that experience to proclaim that that Windows was a non-functional, useless operating system developed by people who don't give a damn, I would not be taken seriously.

By the way have you considered what reporting bugs like this for Windows is like? You end up on one of those Microsoft support sites staffed by non-technical non-employee Community Experts who have absolutely nothing useful to add. Talking to real driver and OS developers directly on Linux bug reports is magical in comparison.

> People respond like that because they genuinely have been using Linux desktops for decades, and have been perfectly productive using them for work and play. And then someone posts something like 'I tried installing Ubuntu but thing X didn't work, how can anyone do real work on this joke operating system? I stopped using it immediately' and they just want to provide a different perspective.

...because they have entangled their identity with their OS of choice such that they interpret "I had a problem with this and therefore don't use it" as some kind of personal attack. This is not only unhelpful, but an actively repellent behavior.

> Personally I bought a Windows laptop a few years ago and had to stop using the OS because both sleep and the Intel wifi drivers simply didn't work. Yet if I tried to use that experience to proclaim that that Windows was a non-functional, useless operating system developed by people who don't give a damn, I would not be taken seriously.

Case in point, who is saying Linux is useless? Useless for their particular use case or workflow, sure. Even people who like Windows generally, like myself, say the developers don't give a damn (see some of my other posts on the subject). Fact is, a lot of use would love to be using an OSS system, but the community actively fights us when we have issues with their stuff and their echo chamber of "our way is the best way!" remains unbreached, so our use cases and workflows are never accommodated and we, consequently, can't use it. This has been going on for about 20 years now. It's pretty damned tiring.

> By the way have you considered what reporting bugs like this for Windows is like?

I work supporting Windows systems, so I know how useless Microsoft support is. You know what I don't get when I talk about a Windows issue with other Windows admins though? "Well it works fine here..."

> Talking to real driver and OS developers directly on Linux bug reports is magical in comparison.

Sure, if they listen, which they often don't. Spend some time in Ubuntu's issue tracker if you don't believe me.

I have noticed Ubuntu and Fedora's bug trackers often seem to have ignored and longstanding bug reports. I think part of the problem is there is a layer of indirection - the developers of the packages themselves don't look there.

>they interpret "I had a problem with this and therefore don't use it" as some kind of personal attack. This is not only unhelpful, but an actively repellent behavior.

Your posts so far have implied that people reporting their positive experience or advising how to make the most of Linux (eg being careful about hardware choice) must be doing so because of a kind of identity crisis, or that they are reciting from mockable 'Linux Desktop Evangelism playbook'. Meanwhile you seem to have taken personal offence at the 'community's (as if it's one entity) response to your Ubuntu bug tracker entry.

My point exactly. If you report something like this on the Ubuntu bug tracker, your bug will be gathering dust forever. If you are (un)lucky some bug triager who has absolutely no knowledge of coding or the systems involved will ask you for logs that are useless to the problem at hand, and that will be it.

It doesn't matter who is in the minority. If even 1% of Linux desktop installs have issues, quirks or plain failures, it's a problem for all of Linux as that 1% chance of failure becomes a first impression, or a horror story a product manager can't unhear.

Having said that, I'm also generally in the boat of having an unpleasant experience installing on various laptops. Doesn't stop me from trying every year or so though, ha.

Have you considered buying a laptop with linux at some point?

If you're just asking me personally - absolutely I have! I had to sell my MacBook because of the pandemic and I deeply miss my i3-clone yaourt.

I'm running regolith with i3 using an X server on my WSL 2 install. It even has GPU passthrough now! It's been super pleasant experience having the best of both worlds without having to reboot.

If you're asking to make a point, I'll just say that it takes a level of tech savvy to even know _how_ to find a Linux laptop that runs smoothly. That is the problem I'm referring to.

The best logical answer would be to buy something that comes with linux after reading a review to ensure that it meets your needs.

Right that's gonna be my strategy going forward. I should have mentioned I had to stick with windows on my gaming rig because I don't currently have the money for a new laptop.

I've heard Dell and the Thinkpads work well with Linux. Got any other suggestions?

And here I'm, running 4K linux desktop for years already.

But hey, for some people linux will never do anything right.

90% of Linux Desktops could experience a problem and as soon as someone reports it another guy would come out of the woodwork and shout that it works for him.

I mean, there's a whole lot of people in this thread saying that Windows scaling works perfectly for them when it definitely doesn't for me (use Windows-arrow to move browser window from a 4k to a 2k monitor and back again a few times, it'll eventually change shape and size).

Just like reporting Ubuntu bugs feels like shouting into the void, what are your chances as an end user of MS quickly fixing a bug you find?

The experience of finding solutions to Windows problems, which is in fact a significant portion of my day job, is vastly superior regardless of the fact that opening issues with Microsoft support is useless. For one, things generally aren't radically overhauled ever 2 years making all previous documentation on a subject obsolete. For two, when you talk with other Windows admins about a problem you're having, you don't get "well it works for me" presented as though it is somehow helpful.

> For two, when you talk with other Windows admins about a problem you're having, you don't get "well it works for me" presented as though it is somehow helpful.

If I had a pound for the number of times I've had Windows issues, Googled the error code (because error code 0x800704cf is so intelligible) and found some mix of "I'm having the same problem, how do I fix it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" or "just reinstall".

Well that is a pretty understandable error code from winerror.h:

0x8007 - warning in facility 7 (WIN32)

0x04c7 - 1231L - ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE

// MessageId: ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE

// MessageText:

// The network location cannot be reached. For information about network troubleshooting, see Windows Help.

#define ERROR_NETWORK_UNREACHABLE 1231L

If you know to consult the C header files for Windows, maybe, bearing in mind that comment was in response to this:

> The experience of finding solutions to Windows problems, which is in fact a significant portion of my day job, is vastly superior

Second result for "0x800704cf windows 10" is this shambles on MS's own discussion site: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10... where the poster says they spent hours on the phone to MS trying to get support and on the way had done some insane registry fiddling to try to fix it before discovering it was an issue with their user account.

When you talk to Linux admins, they don't try to claim that something you know very well on your platform doesn't work either. Windows folks, come out of woodwork doing claims about things they have zero knowledge about. Or they heard about it 20 years ago and think that nothing changed since then, despite everything being overhauled every 2 years.

> When you talk to Linux admins, they don't try to claim that something you know very well on your platform doesn't work either.

In Windows land I don't have to know something very well to get reasonable help on it.

Besides which, I know from personal experience that Linux Desktop people will assume all sorts of things about you. Quite often I will ask something like "is it possible to make X do Y?" and the response will be something like "you shouldn't do Y. Why do you want to do Y? You should do Z instead, I've only ever needed to do Z".

In Windows land, there's as much as incompetent advice as in Linux one. It is about people, not systems.

> Quite often I will ask something like "is it possible to make X do Y?" and the response will be something like "you shouldn't do Y. Why do you want to do Y? You should do Z instead, I've only ever needed to do Z".

Ever seen the answers in Microsoft Community? It is either this, or a complete misdirection, so some Microsoft contractor could prove his productivity, and in the end solving nothing.

--- I'm using all three desktop systems: Linux, Mac and Windows. No, the grass is not greener on either side. Every single of them has its problems, and every one of them has its stronger points. However, "if you still can’t properly support 4K scaling in 2020" is complete nonsense.

> Ever seen the answers in Microsoft Community? It is either this, or a complete misdirection, so some Microsoft contractor could prove his productivity, and in the end solving nothing.

Just reinstall Windows, that'll fix all your problems! (/s)

cite? And more seriously, that can be said of anything. Or, the reverse; it could work for 99.9% of the people, but one comes out of the woodwork on HN threads and points out it doesn't for them or "someone they know", then all of a sudden it's considered broken.

The actual quote is

>if you still can’t properly support 4K scaling in 2020

To which this is an entirely reasonable response.

> if you still can’t properly support 4K scaling in 2020

Please elaborate? I've been using KDE with scaling and 4K monitor plus a widescreen for the last few years.

I run KDE with two 4k screens and there are two things that don't work as of 2020.

1. X can't handle independent screen scaling of two different DPIs. I have 24" and 27" screens and on windows I can have the 24" one at 2x and the 27" one at 1.5x and it "just works". In X I have both at 1.5x.

2. Wayland supports independently scaling the two screens. Unfortunately programs that don't support wayland run through something called XWayland, which upscales them in a crude way that makes the fonts blurry. It's pretty much unusable because of this to have an XWayland app (this includes chrome, firefox, and emacs) running on a 4k screen in wayland, at least on KDE.

It's frustrating because it's SO CLOSE. There are WIP branches of both browsers running on wayland (but they're not stable for me) and once those land I think everything will finally work.

All this said I do still use KDE on X daily as my development environment, but every time I boot back into Windows I'm frustrated again by how much better the scaling is.

Just to add to this, non-integer (AKA fractional) scaling also works substantially worse on gnome for me than in windows. It even is hidden behind a switch with a warning that it "May increase power usage, lower speed, or reduce display sharpness". I can confirm all three.

Given pretty much all laptop screens manufactured these days look best with about 125%-150% scaling, this is a pretty big issue.

It looks like XWayland handles this by just reporting that every screen is 0mm x 0mm, some applications don't like this.

I always thought Microsoft would simply make their own brand of Linux (somehow? who knows) that would be all sorts of Microsoftified, which seems easier and better than worrying about Windows backward compatibility by making Windows Linuxified.

But the success of WSL would seem to indicate they aren't really in the market for their own flavor of Linux.

I run Linux on the desktop and it works fine for my needs. Who said it had to be everything to everyone?

> Who said it had to be everything to everyone?

Sadly, a lot of zealous Linux Desktop Evangelists exist and are extremely vocal.

The idea behind Linux on the Desktop was always that it would take over the world and defeat Windows and Mac

Indeed. I’m saying that was always a silly idea and I don’t see the point of it.

Nah, nobody promised that for today or tomorrow. Just wait for a few decades ;)

That's one hell of a projection

Ubuntu Mate on two Dell 4k monitors, been working great for at least five years, possibly more.

If you care about software freedom WSL isn't a meaningful benefit.

I'm using Linux on my desktop since 2003 or so. Migrated my mom (85 yo, mostly retired) around 2005. We are both quite happy with it.

Linux Desktop Evangelism playbook entry #4: "My grandma uses it".

The Linux Desktop Evangelist believes that this demonstrates that Linux Desktop is not difficult to use, but what it actually demonstrates is simply that Linux makes a really good appliance. As long as you don't ask more of it than one or two carefully accounted for use cases, you won't see a problem. Attempt to step out of the box though...

Writing documents and using spreadsheets, creating presentations, reading and responding to e-mails, and browsing the web, which is what she uses, covers pretty much 99.999% of the uses a computer gets.

Do you have a concrete use case where Linux fails and Windows succeeds?

Whatever I tell you, you will have an excuse.

For instance, if I say I do something requiring an application for which there is no good OSS equivalent you'll tell me it isn't Linux's fault companies don't port their software to an OS with ludicrous levels of fragmentation that break compatibility nearly every release.

I have been in this argument many, many times over the past 2 decades. It is always the same. Deny there are problems, suggest insufficient alternatives, even recommend just changing their use case entirely. Anything to avoid saying "yeah, Linux actually isn't good for that".

Linux isn't good for making Windows users happy.

The 90s called and want their argument back. Also, slashdot says hi. :-)

Hmmm, mod 4 Insightful? or mod 2 Offtopic?