Kitz Forum
Computer Software => Linux => Topic started by: vic0239 on June 23, 2020, 09:46:42 PM
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I bough one of these, Intel NUC i7 10710U 10th Gen Frost Canyon Mini PC , with the intention of running
Linux. I had to experiment with various distros to find one which included drivers for this (newish) hardware and eventually settled on the latest mint. So far so good. Installed ok and populated with various programs or equivalents I currently run on my Mac.
I have a 4K monitor and find running at the native resolution makes everything too small, so set the resolution to something more comfortable via the Display preferences. However, I now find the rendering of text to be quite fuzzy and not as crisp as other operating systems. I’ve tried various scaling options such as in the Font preferences, setting HiDPI and using xrandr to change the scaling, but non of this has helped.
So to all the Linux gurus here, is there any solution or is this just a “feature” of the OS? I’d love to stick with it, but find it very tiring on the old eyes.
Many thanks.
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I am not familiar with that particular OS but the fact that you mention changing --
. . . various scaling options such as in the Font preferences, setting HiDPI and using xrandr to change the scaling, but non of this has helped.
-- without success has ruled out all suggestions that I would have made. :(
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You'd have to show us an example to see what's wrong as HiDPI should definitely work, unless the fonts are somehow not be anti-aliased.
You could also try the next Alpha release to see if fractional scaling (https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/02/cinnamon-desktop-fractional-scaling-support) helps?
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Many thanks to you both for your replies.
Alex, thank you so much for that link. In all my searching for solutions I did not come across any reference to that Beta release. I downloaded the ISO and ran the live version, what a difference! The fonts are much cleaner and sharp :clap: and there are more intermediate resolution adjustments too. Indeed the whole desktop environment looks much better, controls are more subtle in appearance and the colours, particularly the dark modes, are more graduated. As you can probably guess I am delighted - you have saved my project! :)
I've attached a couple of screen grabs, but the difference is hard to spot. Certainly when enlarged you can go further in the later one (09:52) before it pixelates to the same extent.
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You don't say which desktop you're using with Mint. It might be worth trying a couple.
That NUC is a beast of a machine for Linux. What are you going to do with it?
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My intention was to use it as my main desktop system for everything from simple email to 4k video editing and all the usual stuff in between. Unfortunately, I still wasn't happy with the display, when moving windows around, the edges would tear which I found distracting. I'm afraid I took the easy way out and installed Windows 10 which coming from macOS drew breath from all who know me! :o
I can't remember which desktop I was using with Mint, but have since found and am trying out Kubuntu KDE which looks much better and I particularly like the Plasma desktop. Rather than constantly disturbing my main set up I have purchased a second NUC (NUC10I5FNH3) so I can fiddle around with Linux without damaging anything. Both machines perform extremely well. I haven't done any benchmarking, but the i7 is very responsive and 4K video rendering is fast for example.
ps Welcome to the forum! :)
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ps Welcome to the forum! :)
Thank you!
I like XFCE, but that's basically because I have been using it for years and years, and I can get it to do exactly what I want.