Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 12, 2016 8:49 UTC (Tue) by distances (guest, #103785)
In reply to: Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7 by aryonoco
Parent article: Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

> Traditional Linux on desktop is a lost cause. Can we all please move to Chromium OS and start developing apps in Android please?

How about keeping the discussion constructive? I'm coming to LWN to find proper discussion, not this kind of unnecessary flaming.

HiDPI is a fundamental change in desktop software. The big players of course can develop their stuff in co-operation with hardware vendors until everything works, and then release both when things are ready. FOSS can just play catch-up here, as you should very well know.

These efforts should be applauded, but half of the comments here are just ranting or direct attacks. I just don't get it.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 12, 2016 12:30 UTC (Tue) by aryonoco (guest, #55563) [Link] (1 responses)

That last sentence was said with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. Sorry if the sarcasm was lost.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 12, 2016 13:03 UTC (Tue) by distances (guest, #103785) [Link]

Right, I did miss your tone in that case, sorry for the frustrated response.

I do understand these woes myself: I should get a new work laptop just about now, and I'm not sure if 4K screen is still a good idea -- anecdotes of current state of Plasma 5 HiDPI are welcome! Using Linux is still a bit restrictive on the desktop, especially if you can't really risk missing a workday due to problems with your exotic setup. Most of my colleagues are using Macs, which then again really aren't completely without problems either.

Overall things do work very well though, and with a bit preliminary work I have always found myself with a pleasant hardware and latest KDE goods.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 12, 2016 17:11 UTC (Tue) by krake (guest, #55996) [Link] (1 responses)

> I just don't get it.

Lots of commenters have very little understanding of software development, or the different between corporate and voluneer work. Or both.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 12, 2016 17:29 UTC (Tue) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Too true. I've wondered which big open source project with a couple of million users "Torquay" is maintaining, for instance.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 15, 2016 13:54 UTC (Fri) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link] (6 responses)

These efforts should be applauded, but half of the comments here are just ranting or direct attacks. I just don't get it.

I think it's mostly born of frustration. It's not a helpful response, but it's an understandable emotion.

I've been using Linux as a desktop since the late '90s, and for most of that time I've been happy that, while it has some oddities, overall it's been better than the alternatives, and I've enjoyed how much it made easy things that were difficult or even impossible on the other major platforms.

Unfortunately, that's just not the case any more. I recently got stuck with a Windows 10 laptop for work, but actually it been a total revelation - previous versions of Windows used to be able to annoy me in a matter of minutes with their weird inconsistencies and random breakages, but 10 is actually good, it's actually easy to get stuff done, and this area in particular works really smoothly. I can hotplug a normal DPI monitor into my HiDPI laptop, drag a window onto it, and have it rescaled appropriately as I do. The first time I did it I was amazed it worked, then it struck me that it really shouldn't be a shock that you can have two screens and draw things the right size on both of them.

The current state of the Linux desktop is bad, it's worse than it was, and it's a lot worse than the alternatives. That's sad, and for the vast majority of us who aren't in a position to do a lot about fixing it beyond submitting bug reports, the options seem to be to suffer though it, or give up and move elsewhere.

I'm not surprised people get upset about that, it's upsetting.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 15, 2016 16:53 UTC (Fri) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (4 responses)

> I'm not surprised people get upset about that, it's upsetting.

True. But flaming the people actually spending their energy to work in the relevant area to death, is a good way to not get it ever fixed.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 15, 2016 17:32 UTC (Fri) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (3 responses)

Especially when the flamers seem to be people who have never ever tried maintaining a free software project with a couple million users for even a day let alone years on end.

That said, I use Windows, Gnome, Plasma 5, Plasma 4 and OSX on a daily basis, and honestly, they all suck in different ways. Windows 10 regularly forgets that its got a touch screen -- which is unpleasantly limiting on a Surface Pro device. Gnome regularly forgets its extensions, and why the heck is the logout button hidden under a fold-out? Plasma 5 sometimes messes up my taskbar, but fair is fair, so does Windows 10. OSX has the most pathetic excuse for a Window manager ever, and instead of improving that is pushing all users to a full-screen workflow, because tablets. Connecting a drawing tablet is easiest on Linux, but both Gnome's and Plasma's tablet config applet is broken. OSX works fine with my Intuos 3 but not with my Cintiq, while the Intuos 3 doesn't work on Windows 10. On Windows, switching different tablets is hell anyway because they all need a different wintab dll, that cannot coexist. And what the heck has moved microsoft to ship a wintab driver for the Surface tablets that doesn't include the MSVC 2010 runtime?

Software is buggy, software sucks, software is hard, and if you're arguing that one OS is better than the other, or one desktop is better than the other, you're kidding yourself. The only real differentiator is freedom.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 16, 2016 11:15 UTC (Sat) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (2 responses)

"why the heck is the logout button hidden under a fold-out?"

Because logging out it something that you don't do that often? Locking my screen -- sure, every time I leave my workstation. penguin + l.
suspending my laptop when I move it? Sure, close lid. But logging out? I don't think I've ever done that since university times, with shared lab computers...

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 16, 2016 15:35 UTC (Sat) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, I know the theory, but it still doesn't make any sense: it doesn't save space, it doesn't make the system easier to use or less cluttered, it adds clicks and it's confusing that the logout option is in a different place from reboot and shutdown. And I logout a lot because I need to test Krita on the most used desktops.

I also suspend my desktop a lot, for which I actually have to _install an extension_, which also doesn't make any sense to me.

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 19, 2016 19:45 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

And it's the devs assuming that their use-case is everybody's use case ... News at Ten - we're not all the same ...

Cheers,
Wol

Gräßlin: Multi-screen woes in Plasma 5.7

Posted Jul 15, 2016 18:19 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> The current state of the Linux desktop is bad, it's worse than it was, and it's a lot worse than the alternatives.

I disagree on all three points, especially on the second one -- The other two are a lot more subjective.

I suspect there's a certain amount of rose-colored memory involved when it comes to comparing things as they are to as they used to be. Despite the modern desktop being an order of magnitude more complex (and capable) than the old desktop environments of yesteryear, things largely JustWork(tm) without having to hand-fiddle with anything.

Sure, things are *different* but that in of itself doesn't make them worse (or better).

This things-have-never-been-better situation goes for the entire software stack.

(BTW, I am writing this as someone who currently uses Gnome3 at home, Gnome2 at work, and has been using Linux as his primary desktop/compute environment for nearly twenty years..)