u/tornado99_

Apple has always considered 218 ppi as Retina for monitors in the products they manufacture, and Windows designed their Surface Studio at 192 ppi. Both of these allow these OSs to be displayed as designed with 200% scaling.

Gnome and KDE will also only auto-switch to 200% above those thresholds.

Exceedingly few 185 ppi monitors have ever been produced, and having owned 2 personally were never satisfactory for the HiDPI experience. In fact Gnome will auto-set 166% scaling when you plug one in.

I have also not seen a single definition outside this subreddit that sets the threshold at 185 ppi. There are some that set it at 160 ppi. Feel free to correct me if wrong.

Personally I would class 185 ppi monitors in the same group as 123 ppi and 163 ppi: significantly sharper than standard, but needs fractional scaling.

I have a M1 Macbook Pro 13 running the latest kernel, and a Snapdragon Lenovo X1 Elite also running the latest kernel. Idle power measured with Resources app. Both Ubuntu.

M1 Macbook Pro

Sleep Battery loss - 1.3% hr (0.8W/h)

Idle Power - 2W (min brightness, airplane mode)

Idle Power - 6.5W (full 500 nit 60Hz brightness, wifi/bluetooth)

Lenovo Slim 7x with X1 Elite (~15% more powerful than an M1 in single core)

Sleep Battery loss - 1.6% hr (1W/hr)

Idle Power - 3.7W (min brightness, airplane mode)

Idle Power - 7.5W (full 500 nit 90Hz brightness, wifi/bluetooth)

Note - the Lenovo has an OLED display which have higher idle power draw than IPS

I am also hearing rumours that X1 Elite might get < 1% hr/battery loss with kernel 7.2 or 7.3. Not heard anything about idle power.

Any comments?

Gnome, and also other OSs lack a good way of finding your installed apps when you have a lot installed. I currently have 6 pages of Apps in the Overview.

I know that the Gnome philosophy is that if I am looking for a Graphics app I type Graphics in the Overview, but this isn't that fast and only shows 6 apps when I have about 20 apps in that category.

Options tried

1. Manually add apps to folders

Takes a long time to manually organise. Need multiple clicks to navigate. Main problem - if you have more than 9 apps in any category it's even slower to navigate.

2. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/7867/app-grid-wizard/

Fast to organise, but same 9+ problem

3. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/8252/category-sorted-app-grid/

Fast to navigate but you have no idea where one category ends and the next begins, or what category you're looking at

4. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3628/arcmenu/

None of the options are fast to navigate. Feels clunky on Gnome.

Solution (but this is from old Gnome)

The only solution I found was the Official Apps Menu from Gnome 2.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6/applications-menu/

This does exactly what I want:

• auto-sorts apps by category
• apps in alphabetical order within categories
• launch each app with a single click as you only need to hover over each category to switch to that category

this works blazingly fast but is not part of the modern Gnome UI.

Is there no more modern solution? Here is how macOS Tahoe does it:

Edit: I'm trying Vertical App Grid extension. It's definitely a much quicker and smoother way of browsing 100 apps

https://preview.redd.it/3d8zk6mb47ch1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=e0524ab0163f52be333c3ef0beda54d996884d78

Like everyone else when I first started using Gnome I went crazy with extensions, but recently I realised I didn't need most of them. Especially all the ones with fancy blur effects and visual changes.

Gnome is actually great for getting work done by default. Here are my essentials which are all just small tweaks.

• Alphabetical App Grid (this used to be default in Gnome)
• Blur My Shell (only for the Overview) *
• Just Perfection (remove a couple of buttons)
• Night Light Scheduler (gradually redden screen throughout the evening)
• Rounded Window Corners Reborn (rounded corners on electron apps like VS Codium, Mailspring)

Oh, and the Ubuntu extensions

• AppIndicators
• Ubuntu Dock (Dash to Dock)
• Workspace Indicator

Does anyone else have a minimal set of extensions they can't live without?

*Edit: I don't need Blur My Shell. default is perfectly fine.

Apple's 2017 iMac press release says "The new 4K and 5K screens offer 500 nits of brightness, an increase of 43 percent on the previous model, as well as a 1200:1 contrast ratio. The displays also have 10-bit dithering, and are capable of supporting a billion colors."

I just color profiled my late 2015 5K model using an X-rite spectro and got:

490 nits, 1150:1 contrast, 100% sRGB, 88% Adbobe, 99.8% DCI-P3

Given manufacturing tolerances this is basically the same performance as newer models.

Also, macOS tells me I have 30-bit color (so 10 bit per channel).

Maybe some lucky 2015 owners got the higher performing panels, but Apple didn't announce it until they were confident every iMac sold would get those panels?

Just curious how much battery loss is per hour under current Asahi?

Up until this month, Snapdragon laptops (also ARM64) in Ubuntu were terrible - 4.5%/hour loss, but that has now reduced to 1.6% with Kernel 7.1.

Also important to note, this is on a Lenovo Slim 7x. Linux support for Qualcomm devices is extremely device dependent. Some don't even boot!

Running Ubuntu 26.04. Almost everything worked since early this year. The final roadblock was that battery loss during sleep was 4.5% an hour. Now, with Kernel 7.1*, I get 1.6% loss an hour. So if I leave it uncharged overnight at 100%, it will still be 88% in the morning. Not as good as Windows, but perfectly usable.

Geekbench results are similar to Windows. But battery life is not quite as good (I get around 10-11 hours with high screen brightness).

I did have to install a manually built kernel linked at the bottom, but 7.1 should automatically come to Ubuntu in the next few months.

A few more things which are not perfect:

• Dolby sound doesn't officially work, but some people have managed to translate the speaking tuning files into Linux-compatible tunings. Qualcomm's Smart DSP doesn't work though, so you will get good quality sound, but not very high volume. Overall it's decent.
• Qualcomm's Webcam ISP doesn't work, so currently the webcam is just a raw unfiltered image. However there are efforts on Linux to create an open Software ISP to improve the quality for all webcams. Overall it's functional, but your face looks better in Windows!
• Qualcomm's NPU doesn't work
• A few usb-c external displays might not work, but this should be solved by Kernel 7.2 this summer

And one thing which isn't on Windows:

• Battery charge limit of 80% works

* https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-concept-snapdragon-x-elite/48800/1957

This question has been asked a million times but I want answers based on:

• How many people work on the distro?
• Their motivation to work?
• How healthy is the culture among contributors?
• Does the distro have 1 person who does most of the work, and doesn't want to give up control?
• Do they get paid to work on it/does another part of their job give them free time to work on it?
• Does a company back the distro and how long might the company survive?
• What happens if those people get bored/stop working on the distro?

Ignore how good/bad the distro is for your needs.

https://preview.redd.it/yissw00vio1h1.png?width=2944&format=png&auto=webp&s=e197a41b5699ce32666e89abcea24c2ecbf66379

After periods of using Thunderbird, and then Geary, I was getting annoyed with their various shortcomings.

At a minimum I need a one line preview of each email in the message list (which isn't even on the Thunderbird roadmap). Also Thunderbird is memory heavy and still feels clunky despite the partial UI makeover. Geary is fine, but uses old toolkits and is showing its age (also no longer developed). Sometimes html messages don't render correctly in Geary (I believe it uses webkit).

Mailspring went through a period of hardly being developed. But I think the main Dev switched to Linux last year, and now there's very frequent updates (https://www.getmailspring.com/changelog). Also they abandoned needing an account to use it. Developer is responsive to bug reports on Discourse.

Default theme is ok but dated. Switching to the inbuilt Darkside Theme (created by a graphic designer), and it looks great and modern.

https://github.com/Foundry376/Mailspring

I'm a small screen guy. Just don't like 27 inch that much. Especially losing your mouse cursor because the screen's so big.

A short history of my high res monitors:

2015

Dell Office Monitor - 23.8 inch, 300 nit, 4K, 185 ppi

2017

Apple iMac Intel - 21.5 inch, 600 nit, 4096x2304 (4K+), 220 ppi

2020

LG Ultrafine - 23.8 inch, 600 nit, 4K, 185 ppi

2024 (returned because didn't like white border)

Apple iMac M1 - 23.5 inch, 500 nit, 4.5K, 220 ppi

So currently I'm using my super bright iMac (wish it were a little bigger) and Ultrafine (wish I could use 200% scaling)

But there doesn't seem to be anything to replace them in the future. My ideal monitor would actually be the new Apple iMac, but with black borders. Or even better, a small 4K OLED

Why are there no premium smaller monitors coming out? Surely not everyone likes 27 inches.

Having experimented a lot with Linux on Mac the following points are dealbreakers for me. Currently using Ventura (pre 2015 Macs) or Sequoia (post 2015 Macs), with OCLP, and will continue to do so until they are scrapped:

• Linux isn't actually faster. I see no evidence of this - comparing fresh install to fresh install
• Suspend doesn't work, or loses a lot of battery
• Instant wake gone
• Speakers sound worse, and the only real solution is buying an expensive reference microphone and building your own speaker correction profile
• Weird problems with T2 Macs like flashing touchbar
• Apple built the best machines in the world around mediocre hot processors (Intel)

Unless your Mac is extremely old I just don't see the point of Linux. The latest web browers still work on Ventura, and Sequoia. The only possible advantage might be security, but you're probably not installing a bunch of random software on an old Mac, and the browser itself should protect from online exploits.

Probably a wider point is how sensible it is to keep using the same computer for decades. Any machine without usb-c ports is already a bit annoying in the modern world. Not to mention improvements in WiFi standards, screen technology, etc.

Having used ARM chips (Apple and Qualcomm) on Mac, Windows, and Linux with their amazing low latency and battery life, the future is ARM.

https://preview.redd.it/9v88rb1wea0h1.png?width=2112&format=png&auto=webp&s=0eb0ed64862beddf3f62787867215ba2f855a9a1

Brave Nightly .deb has 30 icons in my App grid

It only has 1 entry in .local/share/applications

How I can fix this?

how to fix?

https://preview.redd.it/4mdasf7k970h1.png?width=2112&format=png&auto=webp&s=9699a6af8bab2043a0c18c336d0aaa2e93adb754

I'm a huge Ubuntu fan - having their own font+icons+theme+wallpaper makes it feel really cohesive. But I was wondering what options there are for people who don't like Ubuntu but still want that cohesion.

Of course many distros have a specific font but it's not one that was created specifically for that desktop environment.

And of course out of the 4 from my title, only one is a general purpose consumer OS.

So why don't more distros create/commission their own font?

Historical Note

KDE used to have a font - Oxygen

Gnome has a font but it's really just Inter with a certain character set chosen

(ps. this post was deleted from r/Linux, not sure why, so posting here)

As someone using ARM64 Ubuntu daily on an X Elite laptop, and also considering Asahi for my Macbook M1, here's a few thoughts I had on the two platforms.

Hardware

The X Elite is roughly equivalent to a MBP M2 in performance. The new X Elite 2 is roughly equivalent to a MBP M4. X Elite laptops often have 500 nit 120hz OLED screens (better than Mac), but no haptic touchpads and no smart speaker amplification like Asahi Audio. X Elite have generous specs (16/32GB RAM, 1TB storage), and previous gen models are under $1000.

Linux on X Elite

Since Jan 2026 everything works including sound, webcam, charge limit threshold, and usb-c displays. Support is extremely device dependent - basically only 3 laptops (2 Lenovo, 1 Dell) are daily driver level. Suspend technically works, but loses 4.5% battery an hour. Normal usage is now down to about 4W-7W power draw (low-moderate screen brightness). Unlike Asahi the webcam ISP hasn't been reverse engineered, so currently quality is acceptable but not great. Qualcomm's gpu driver Freedreno is open source and under active development.

Progress

Slow but steady, often driven by Qualcomm engineers themselves. Qualcomm's priorities are Windows on ARM and IoT Linux, but some of their engineers are Linux enthusiasts (such as Hans de Goede) and are allowed to do things which benefit desktop Linux too. Things like 4K120Hz, 3W power draw, 2-3% suspend loss, look to be mainlined for kernel 7.1 or 7.2.

The new X Elite 2 models from Lenovo have similar SoC to the 1st generation, so should get supported much more rapidly than the 2 years it took to get X1 to work well.

Future

Qualcomm may never be interested in explicitly supporting Desktop Linux, but unless they make radical changes to their architecture there shouldn't be any roadblocks. Probably their webcam ISP and speaker DSP will never be available, but as softISP matures and with the correct pipewire digital audio filters or Room Eq Wizard tuning, these aren't huge issues.

A Macbook Pro M2 with working usb c display support running Asahi is still superior to anything Qualcomm based. But it seems to me that when Linux is up and running on X2, probably this summer (e.g. Lenovo Slim 7x 2026) that may no longer be the case.

Summary

Asahi Linux is a Herculean feat of reverse-engineering to get Linux working on premium hardware, but improving it further and for new generations seems very hard. Ubuntu X Elite is a process of small patches (from both Qualcomm and the community) and configuration tweaks, with little reverse-engineering, that is slowly but constantly improving.