[Mint 18] HiDPI support in Mint 18, is it ok?

[overkill22]

I'm stil running mint 17.3 with its poor HiDPI support. In fact I don't have a good setting for the resolution on my 13.3" with 1920x1080. Is with Mint 18 any way better?
I'd like to know if there is someone with the laptop ASUS Zenbook UX305 that is using Mint 18 and hear from him.

[Pierre]

the only real way to find that out,
is to test out LM18 - yourself.

[z31fanatic]

I tried Mint 18 on my Macbook Pro which has HiDPI 2880x1800 resolution and it worked fine. Much improved over 17.3.

[overkill22]

the only real way to find that out,
is to test out LM18 - yourself.

I know, right?

[Kilroy-was-here]

I run Mint 18 on my MacBook Pro, which has a resolution of 2560 x 1600. I set the useful option of desktop scaling to double; it's under Settings -> General.

On the laptop's screen, most things look crisp, but some don't. For instance, some Firefox icons are fuzzy, the Software Manager opens as a tiny screen (although the text is legible). You'll probably find there are some rough edges, but that the OS is usable on a HiDPI screen.

That said, I cannot use my external monitor, which is not HiDPI. I've found instructions to run a regular external monitor next to a HiDPI internal display (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Side_display), but I can't get the external monitor to work. The external monitor has a resolution Linux does not support, so it might be due to that too and not due to my internal display being HiDPI—I can't tell.

So overall, I'd say HiDPI support is adequate.

[overkill22]

I run Mint 18 on my MacBook Pro, which has a resolution of 2560 x 1600. I set the useful option of desktop scaling to double; it's under Settings -> General.

On the laptop's screen, most things look crisp, but some don't. For instance, some Firefox icons are fuzzy, the Software Manager opens as a tiny screen (although the text is legible). You'll probably find there are some rough edges, but that the OS is usable on a HiDPI screen.

That said, I cannot use my external monitor, which is not HiDPI. I've found instructions to run a regular external monitor next to a HiDPI internal display (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#Side_display), but I can't get the external monitor to work. The external monitor has a resolution Linux does not support, so it might be due to that too and not due to my internal display being HiDPI—I can't tell.

So overall, I'd say HiDPI support is adequate.

yeah, the problem is the double scaling. in mint 17.3 there is the double scaling too, but it will not work on my screen that is a 13.3" 1920x1080. Using the double scaling make things huge.
The fact that on some places the icons and words are fuzzy make me think that the support is still not good for HiDPI. That it is weird as nowadays most of the laptop have HD resolution. I'll try the live and see how it looks like on my laptop... but I'm scared to change. It tooks me months to get a workable laptop with mint 17.3 I don't dare to go through the same painful process again...

[georgios]

Same here.. I have a 14" WQHD screen and many programs (Gimp, Skype, Viber, etc) do not function well. Most of them do not seem to be built for such high resolution.

This is as bad as it sounds...

But what is worse is the Software Manager small deformed window when you use the HiDPI support. This is clearly a Mint/Cinnamon bug that has to be dealt. Personally, I would change OS for details like that..

[overkill22]

Same here.. I have a 14" WQHD screen and many programs (Gimp, Skype, Viber, etc) do not function well. Most of them do not seem to be built for such high resolution.

This is as bad as it sounds...

But what is worse is the Software Manager small deformed window when you use the HiDPI support. This is clearly a Mint/Cinnamon bug that has to be dealt. Personally, I would change OS for details like that..

yeah, for what I understood, mint cinnamon is the best HiDPI os at the moment. you can imagine how bad are the others....
I hope they can get around this soon... However the guys are doing a great job here, it is just a matter of this "small" detail...

[sourcelibre]

I just read an interview with Linus Torvalds. In this interview he stated the best LINUX laptop was the Dell XPS 13 developer. Additionally, he stated that the HIDPI screen was great on this machine. Dell installs UBUNTU on the XPS.

However, I have read several reviews about HIDPI resolution on LINUX MINT. One of the reviews was, as recent as August 2016, stated that HIDPI was not good or did not work on Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon. I have read (this forum) that HIDPI does work.

Can someone clear up the confusion?

Does everyone have Linux Mint installed on a DELL XPS 13? -- If so, I would like to hear about your experience.

If HIDPI does not work on the XPS, maybe a Dell Precision laptop is a better choice.

I could spend the extra money on a better processor and not the display.

[splintercat]

I'm trying out HiDPI in VMWare on a MacBook. (Screen resolution is 2880 x 1800)

After I forced HiDPI scaling on, I had to use the troubleshooting menu to restart cinnamon to make all the ui elements scale up correctly.
Fonts look much better and crisper than when VMWare tries to scale things down to 1440 x 900.

I can confirm that GIMP looks strange and doesn't scale uniformly.
Software Manager looks.... odd.
Update Manager looks fine.
Synaptic looks great.
Gnome Terminal looks great.
Firefox is behaving. Some icons look a little fuzzy, but I only notice when I really inspect them.
Google Chrome looks great.
Calculator looks great.
KeepassX is mostly ok, but has some distortion.
VLC has some odd scaling similar to GIMP (Buttons are tiny, but font is scaled correctly).

So a quick spot check shows that many applications appear to look fine with HiDPI, and even the ones that are a bit distorted are still mostly usable.
At a guess, buttons, and some other UI elements that are not scaling are either not detecting that they are in HiDPI mode, or are set with specific pixel sizes or something. Could just be an issue in the backend UI libraries,

[nkoropoff]

I am running HiDPI in Mint 18 Cinnamon (previously 17.3) on an external Samsung 590 at 3840 x 2160 without any issues. My graphics is Intel integrated i7-4600 on a Lenovo X1 Carbon gen 2. Must use HDMI cable for that resolution (30 hz).

[venik212]

Many applications work fine for me: Lubuntu 16.10 with Cinnamon 3.2 on a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro. However, some applications are nearly unusable: ImageJ and master-pdf-editor, for instance, show up with tiny unreadable menus and icons. On the same hardware and OS, gnome and LXDE work fine, so the problem is Cinnamon. As of Jan. 2017 its support of HiDPI is still incomplete, to put it charitably.

[Bradford_Le]

Hi Everyone,

My first post here Pardon me as I'm a super n00b.

I just installed Mint 18.1 on my Dell XPS 15 9550 with Nvidia GTX 960M. And I will say HiDPI with 3840x2160 screen has been a nightmare for me. So far:

1. Even with double DPI setting in display a lot of applications don't display properly: Firefox page margins and text are small, software manager and title bars are tiny
2. Google Chrome is great
3. Global fonts don't apply to everything so every now and then I'll see really small text

My biggest trouble is connecting to an external monitor that doesn't support 4K. HiDPI and Nvidia are NOT compatible yet. I can't seem to find any way to scale the external display properly and xrandr scaling doesn't work with Nvidia 960M. (If any can help here that would be much appreciated)

So for now, I'm currently in normal DPI setting and changed my res to 1920x1080 for external monitors. Are there any downsides to running my Dell at 1920x1080 instead of native resolution?

All in all HiDPI & Mint is beautiful if just working within the laptop itself. Connecting any display peripherals can be troublesome.

[SeventhOblivion]

Also running a newly installed Mint 18.1 on a Dell XPS 15 9550 4K and it is lovely so far after doubling the UI scaling. Prior to discovering this thread I was just running everything at 1920x1080.
In addition to the UI scaling I found it necessary to also bump up the font scaling (in font settings) to 1.1 and maxing out the pointer size. You may need to re-add any panel shortcuts if scaling up from a prior rez as it seems the icon is added to the panel based on the current rez.

[michele1375]

I'm trying out HiDPI in VMWare on a MacBook. (Screen resolution is 2880 x 1800)

I have the same problem, I'm running ubuntu on ESXi 6.5 from my MacBook Pro, but the resolution now is 1440 x 900, no good. Hi, did you find a solution?

Bye
Michele

[MattAllatt]

You can set HiDPI mode from Cinnamon settings - it's in the General settings mode. Everything looks great for me, except the icons in the panel on the right hand side that occasionally don't scale up - such as the skype client which I always prefer to start up manually - the blue skype icon looks tiny. Steam doesn't display too brilliantly at times, but I think that's more to do with that program than Cinnamon.

Otherwise, my brand new dell xps13 with the 3200x1800 display looks awesome.

[overkill22]

You can set HiDPI mode from Cinnamon settings - it's in the General settings mode. Everything looks great for me, except the icons in the panel on the right hand side that occasionally don't scale up - such as the skype client which I always prefer to start up manually - the blue skype icon looks tiny. Steam doesn't display too brilliantly at times, but I think that's more to do with that program than Cinnamon.

Otherwise, my brand new dell xps13 with the 3200x1800 display looks awesome.

I think because yours use the double dpi resolution.
the problem occurs with display likie mine that is 1920x1080 on a 13.3" screen which makes the 1x resolution to small and the 2x resolution too big. The 1.1x, 1.2x & co. are still not working good on mint 18.2

[JosephM]

I know this thread has been going for a little while but a quick read through shows a few misunderstandings.

First 1080p on 13.3 inch screen is NOT HiDPI. I have a 15'' laptop here with a res of 3840x2160. So at 2x scaling it provides a 1080p effective resolution. And I'll tell you, it looks fantastic.

Cinnamon itself supports HiDPI very well. There are two things it does not support. One if fractional scaling. The backends it uses currently don't really support that. I personally haven't tried any desktops that do support this functionality to see how well it works. I believe gnome-shell 3.26 supports it but it's an experimental and hidden feature. The other thing Cinnamon doesn't support is mixing HiDPI and non-HiDPI monitors. This isn't down to Cinnamon but X11. Support for this is one of the selling points of Wayland.

The other problem I see pointed out is application support. That actually has nothing to do with Cinnamon. That is up to the toolkits the applications are written in. Apps like Gimp and Inkscape written in gtk2 don't support it. As of Mint18.3 all of Mints own apps are ported to gtk3, including the software manager. Apps that don't support HiDPI aren't going to support it regardless of the desktop environment you use.

[overkill22]

I know this thread has been going for a little while but a quick read through shows a few misunderstandings.

First 1080p on 13.3 inch screen is NOT HiDPI. I have a 15'' laptop here with a res of 3840x2160. So at 2x scaling it provides a 1080p effective resolution. And I'll tell you, it looks fantastic.

Cinnamon itself supports HiDPI very well. There are two things it does not support. One if fractional scaling. The backends it uses currently don't really support that. I personally haven't tried any desktops that do support this functionality to see how well it works. I believe gnome-shell 3.26 supports it but it's an experimental and hidden feature. The other thing Cinnamon doesn't support is mixing HiDPI and non-HiDPI monitors. This isn't down to Cinnamon but X11. Support for this is one of the selling points of Wayland.

The other problem I see pointed out is application support. That actually has nothing to do with Cinnamon. That is up to the toolkits the applications are written in. Apps like Gimp and Inkscape written in gtk2 don't support it. As of Mint18.3 all of Mints own apps are ported to gtk3, including the software manager. Apps that don't support HiDPI aren't going to support it regardless of the desktop environment you use.

I see your point and I totally agree with the application incompatibility with HiDPI.
It just seems that the 1080p resolution doesn't fit well on a 13.3" screen.

However, on a smaller display like 12 or 13", 1080p at 1× is far too dense (meaning the UI is far too small) for most users. So 4K on this physical size is actually worse than something like 3200×1800 (equivalent to 1600×900 pixel doubled).

source: https://medium.com/elementaryos/what-is ... 24eabea20d

As I understand reading further regarding this matter, it's not a cinnamon/linux faults that doesn't support the fractional scaling, it is a "limitation" of the pixel itself.
It just makes me upset the fact that a $1000 laptop doesn't looks and work properly with linux. I don't know if this resolution works well on windows because it lasted 2 minutes on my laptop before getting wiped.

I actually wanted to get the Dell XPS 13 1800p but was way too expensive.

However, both Asus and Dell are selling their 13.3" 1080p as a full HD.