Tip: install Pop!_OS - Nvidia edition. I also have a (1st gen) Thinkpad X1 Extreme with a 4K screen. In addition to that, I have 3 external 4K screens connected to it (so 4x 4K screens in total), and it runs smoothly without having needed any additonal config/customization.

How much work does it take to get Ubuntu to a good state with Nvidia drivers. e.g. equivalent of ease of use of Pop!_OS. I have a Thinkpad X1 Extreme (Gen3) on the way, and I am researching Pop!_OS vs. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I am leaning Ubuntu but if you tell me there is something magical in the Nvidia Pop!_OS distribution that is hard/impossible to replicate in Ubuntu 20.04 I would consider it.

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.

I’ve tried both. There is no magic except few additional tools to enhance desktop experience like power manager [0] and hi resolution daemon[1]

[0]https://github.com/pop-os/system76-power

[1]https://blog.system76.com/post/174414833678/all-about-the-hi...

Thanks. I’m playing around with popos this weekend.

Fwiw, my default method of managing the NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu 18.04 is by installing the System76 driver package using the directions from their site. I found that to make it way easier than doing it manually, especially bc I needed to manage two CUDA versions on one machine.

I wouldn't guess that switching away from GNOME would break hardware compatibility drivers, but I could be wrong.

I tried popos, but still have an unreadable grub screen.

Is that the only issue there? Sounds like it's not worth going back to 1080p over.

It can be fixed.

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

I quite like the QHD ThinkPad displays (2560x1440), very similar to the quality of a Retina.

Specifically regarding GRUB:

Add 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...)

> Display Managers: When Linux boots in a 4k screen, the GRUB menu is impossible to read, so I have it memorized.

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.

Using XFCE 4.14-r2 (Gentoo) and things are okish with Intel GPU (Lenovo P71, 17' 4k panel). But I did not use the option "Window Scaling" (currently set to 1x) instead I changed in the Fonts-tab the "Custom DPI settings" setting it to 192.

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'm in the same boat where my eyes were not as good as they used to be and I often run a scaled display rather than 1:1. I'm using Ubuntu 18.x LTS and it comes out of the box with gnome but I primarily use i3wm. I was able to scale my display to be 25% larger and every app by adding this line to my .Xresources:

  Xft.dpi: 125

This gets into the technical details more than I am able to, but I agree completely. I also have older eyes, and 4k was just unusable (on a Galago with a 13" screen). I could have scaled down by a factor of two, but that was too coarse.

I exchanged the Galago for a 14" Darter, and 1920x1280 is just right.

The Pangolin looks pretty nice to me.

Same. I use the Xresources and scale factor environment variables for my desktop with its 32 inch screen and I love it. It's great. But for a laptop, you get a little crispness on the text, but in general there's no reason to get a 4K display on a 13~15 inch screen. It's not worth all that effort.

You can change the GRUB loader resolution in config, my dear penguin.

Also, KDE is better in all regards. Ditch gnome.

> 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.

This may be a bug in an older KDE version. I'm on debian testing with running the latest stuff from https://www.preining.info/blog/2020/12/debian-kde-plasma-sta... . I'm no longer running into those HiDPI issues in gnome or kde apps (some wxwidgets stuff is still wonky). Nothing ends up the wrong scale when using Plasma Wayland, but there are still other issues that aren't worked out that keep it from being perfect either. You might quickly try the KDE Neon distro on a live usb disk to see if it behaves better and then you'll know if the bugs you're running into have been fixed. https://neon.kde.org/

You can change GRUB and add your own fonts, yes:

   GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080
   GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
   GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSans30.pcf"

but you can't change the framebuffer resolution:

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.

> You can change the GRUB loader resolution in config, my dear penguin.

But why do you have to? Why doesn't it use a reasonably sized font by default?

Since you are of the opinion that it is a small matter of programming, and it is an open-source project that takes contributions, you should definitely go write that.

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

that's a bit snippy for a response to a fairly reasonable question

Pardon me but that sounds rather entitled.

Tip: Check the Arch Wiki's HiDPI page... There is a bit more to it thank QT_SCALE_FACTOR.

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