[HN Gopher] Managing an external display on Linux shouldn't be t...
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Managing an external display on Linux shouldn't be this hard
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 37 points
Date : 2021-11-13 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (changelog.complete.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (changelog.complete.org)
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Apart from the screen locking bits, everything works for me in
| Arch
| beebeepka wrote:
| > I have a USB-C dock that provides both power and a Thunderbolt
| display output over the single cable to the laptop.
|
| That's where I stopped reading. Mac and Windows also have
| problems with such setups. Not to mention having displays with
| different resolutions and refresh rates
| filoleg wrote:
| I currently have that setup for my old work-provided Macbook
| Pro from 2017. One cable going from the laptop into the
| thunderbolt dock (no extra cables, as the same cable also
| charges the laptop). The dock outputs to 2 external displays,
| one 4k@60hz, another 1080p@60hz. Same 2 monitors are also
| plugged into my Windows desktop directly.
|
| Been using that setup for almost 2 years, zero issues
| whatsoever, so I have no idea what you are talking about. I
| would be willing to concede that I just got lucky with the
| stability of my setup, but my friends who use similar multi-
| monitor setups with thunderbolt docks have no such issues
| either.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I use my external display as a USB-C dock. I run it at its
| native 3840 x 1600 resolution at 120Hz or 144Hz, connected to
| my MacBook Air 13" running retina native resolution at 60Hz.
| Never had an issue with this setup on macOS.
| fortran77 wrote:
| My Windows laptop has no problems with this. And neither do the
| Mac laptops that visitors sometimes bring to the office.
| sgt wrote:
| This is simply factually incorrect.
| halikular wrote:
| The different refresh rate issue was fixed on windows as far as
| I'm aware a year ago.
| md8z wrote:
| I have no idea about some of those other desktops, but all the
| basic moving parts are mostly necessary:
|
| - logind because you probably still want lid/sleep events to work
| when at a VT
|
| - gdm because you probably still want lid/sleep events to work
| while nobody is logged in
|
| - desktop settings because different users may want different
| things to happen on those events
|
| I'm a little confused as to why the gdm settings were needed, at
| least for me those only take effect when the greeter is actually
| open. And in GNOME the separate screensaver daemon has been
| removed, in part because it simplifies the whole equation.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's been a long time since I've worked with this stuff in any
| depth, but I wonder if there's the concept of "handoff". While
| a VT is front-and-center, logind should be in control. While
| GDM is in the foreground, GDM should be in control. While the
| desktop environment... etc.
|
| But it seems to me that each of these things aren't entirely
| aware of the other, and constantly fight for control. I know
| logind has an "inhibit" API that lets another program take over
| some functions, but who knows if everyone uses it properly. And
| does GDM have the same thing? Or is it expected to just know
| when it should step aside?
| md8z wrote:
| Yes, part of it is the inhibitor API although IIRC there are
| some other parts. GDM and GNOME share the same implementation
| of this API so they should at least do the right thing, not
| sure about other desktops and login managers.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| All of this works oob on my Fedora system.
|
| We Linux users keep endlessly personalizing our systems, forking
| off into the sunset with ever more weird and over-optimized
| specialisations, and then we wonder why stuff bugs and why new
| users have a hard time.
|
| Look at Windows and OSX - and the numerous problems they have
| supporting just one system. And here we are with our 362894
| million DEs and we want different initsystems and file systems
| and plugins and themes and god knows what, but we get so mad when
| this obvious mess does not work perfectly .
|
| Maybe stop for second and marvle at the fact that this thing can
| boot at all, given that no 2 people in the community can agree on
| how that even should be done.
|
| (To be read in a comedic tone, channeling my Lunduke here)
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| 100% agree. I tried running Pop OS as my main system a few
| years ago and got sucked into ricing, WMs, extensions and
| themes. Spent all my time customizing and fixing the bugs that
| arose, hated it and went back to Windows.
|
| Now I'm back on Pop but this time I know enough to not
| customize too hard and it works great. A DE/WM is meant to
| function as one cohesive piece even if its built out of many
| components, so if you take a functional DE and start poking
| around then of course it will break. Even the amount of
| customization I can do easily without breaking anything is far
| above what Mac/Windows offer.
| mastax wrote:
| > 100% agree. I tried running Pop OS as my main system a few
| years ago and got sucked into ricing, WMs, extensions and
| themes. Spent all my time customizing and fixing the bugs
| that arose, hated it and went back to Windows.
|
| This is always my issue with Linux. Windows is boring and
| ugly - to the extent that I probably can't fix it - so I
| don't bother and I just get stuff done instead. But with
| Linux, I can imagine this perfectly configured workstation
| and I know it's possible because I've seen the things people
| do. So I spend hours tinkering until I break everything or
| get bored. Then I come back months later and the Nvidia
| kernel module fails to build after a kernel update or
| something and I have to start over from scratch. Not a recipe
| for productivity.
|
| This isn't a problem with Linux, per se, more of a personal
| failing. I think I've almost got it out of my system.
| halikular wrote:
| Things work differently on Linux. The software is supposed to
| respect Unix philosophy and standards. So it should matter what
| combination of packages you run. They're not supposed to be
| tightly integrated, the gnome team seems to have forgotten all
| of this. As for managing displays, it has become much better
| with wayland and it's improving fast.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think the problem is that making things look _to the user_
| as an integrated, polished experience is _exceptionally_ hard
| when you have the loosest of loose coupling all over the
| place, and differing views as to how to get things done.
| Sure, you can put APIs and documented IPC interfaces between
| things, but that doesn 't mean everything will match up in a
| usable way. So, eventually, you just decide: screw it, we'll
| own the entire stack, or at least gain enough influence over
| the people who make parts we don't control, such that
| everything works seamlessly for us.
|
| In part, this is why Apple can give their customers such a
| polished, "just works" experience. Buy all-Apple gear, and
| stay in their software ecosystem, and (modulo bugs)
| everything will work together seamlessly.
|
| I don't _like_ this outcome by any means. And I still think
| that some desktop components certainly benefit from loose
| coupling and well-defined interfaces, and it 's possible to
| avoid the "polish" downsides in some cases. But doing
| everything that way, while still being able to put everything
| together in a polished way, might actually be impossible.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It isn't just GNOME, almost all Linux distributions rely on
| tightly-coupling a set of libraries and binaries. That's why
| you can't take a binary from one distro and reasonably expect
| it to work on another and it's why there are dozens of repos
| and thousands of package maintainers and shipping on Linux is
| a pain in the ass.
| bolangi wrote:
| What's hard is not using an external display but responding to
| events such as closing lid or plugging in a external monitor.
|
| I find the lack of advertising and nagging more than compensates
| for manually entering an xrandr command or setting a sleep mode.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Sometimes when I dont feel like messing with xrandr settings and
| profiles, I use arandr. If you are having troubles try it out
| sometime.
| rg111 wrote:
| It works out of the box for me too. Using Linux Mint 20.2.
|
| It gives me absolutely no hassle.
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