2d ago

Linux is not ready

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Which distro has full HDR support?
- Every single one that ships Wayland compositor that supports it. I'd say „finished” is still a bit of a stretch though, since HDR support in apps is still quite limited and the only way to play Windows games with HDR is via Gamescope.
  
  Last time I checked only KDE and Gnome support HDR. (For gnome it is still experimental)
  
  Also Hyprland… Yes, that’s the key - the desktop, not the distribution, though the „stable” distros don't yet ship stuff new enough for this.
  
  A what compositor - try to explain to people, that just want to open a freaking word document, what you just said. Explain to them why libre office completely messes up the formating. "Via gamescope", "Wayland", "wine" whatever. Doesn't sound ready to me.
  
  Stick with Gnome or KDE if you're looking for polished features that you don't need to mess with on CLI. But I think the commenter was just saying the app needs to support HDR as well (both Windows and Linux).
  
  And do you really think that someone who just want to open a word document need to know about HDR ? Sure, if you want to dig into details, will become way more complex, but this kind of use is the exception more than the rules among PC user
  
  anyone that wants to use their computer for basic things like netflix or watching any content at all will notice the difference. They won't be able to tell you it's HDR, but they will think "why does this look worse than it did on windows"?
  
  "Linux totally does this thing!"
  "Cool, I want to use Linux to do that, what do I need to make it work?"
  Gestures vaguely at nothing in particular, refuses to elaborate, leaves.
  
  That is a disconnect the Linux community has. A complete lack of understanding of how little everyday, well known, base terminology is understood by newbies asking questions. They want to help, but are very bad at it until the asked has a certain level of understanding, and people don't want to make it over that hump without help. It has always been a roadblock into onboarding more Linux users, and a wall many bounce off of.
  
  Yes, because back when I was learning almost 20 years ago I was able to google terms and read stuff for myself and it was also requirement for posting on forums, yet I was still getting a lot of help from the community. Times has changed it seems, so did the culture. Should I always assume ignorance and lack of interest? And now before I saw your comment I responded more comprehensively anyway, because why not, I'm not mad or anything. Should I take more time to write the response the first time around? Uh maybe idk
  
  I wasn't calling you out or anything, but yeah, culture changes, what people are used to changes. Also, people have always moved to the path of least resistance through history...hell we don't use metric in the US because the easier metric system was too hard for boomers and change is frightening.
  
  People that just want to open word documents don't need HDR. What's your point?
  
  Have you ever opened a word document that's more than just a single unformated paragraph on libre office. I know it's not a "Linux" issue, but people don't care. Of over 80% of the world uses Windows and Microsoft Office and the Word document somebody sent me looks completely messed up an the inlined table is all over the place or the line break happens on a different row than on the original document it's not ready. And don't say "pdf". People don't care. Karen could open it on her PC with a double click on her machine and on your machine it's completely broken, why should I sent you a pdf. I just sent the same document to Karen and it worked perfectly.
  My point is that Linux Desktop is far from "ready" for regular people.
  
  What's any of that got to do with HDR though? I'm so confused.
  
  Desktop environments or window managers that support Wayland (one of the two displaying systems for Linux, newer one with aim to replace the obsolete one) and already implemented color management protocol in their compositors (programs that compose the image that is being displayed).
  In essence, everything that has recent version of Plasma 6 or current version of Hyperland is able to do HDR. Soon there will be new version of GNOME that does that too.
  Sooo… not Linux Mint, not Debian stable, not Ubuntu LTS.
  
  For what it's worth, I was using linux for a full 2 years before I worked out whether or not I had wayland. -- Because it just doesn't matter for normal everyday use. And I've never even heard of 'gamescope'.
  The technobabble that you're concerned about is only relevant to people who are interested in looking into the details of how things work. Its a bit like talking about the Windows registry, or the many settings you can change with 'group policy', or NTFS, or comparing versions directX. For most people, that stuff just doesn't matter - even if it is a core part of how the system works.
- as far as I know you still have to set environment variables and use gamescope with a flag to enable it for games, but general desktop stuff anything with kde and I think also gnome will have a checkbox in the display settings.

629 comments