[BlackjackCF]

Yup, agreed here.

I shared the sentiments that this post had. Then I got a XPS 15" and booted ElementaryOS on it and trying to deal with the resolution issues from the 4K display was just a huge headache.

Also, say what you will about the MBP, even though I paid $2k for my XPS, it still wasn't nearly as nice as the MBP's touchpad, etc. I would definitely still pay a premium for that MBP hardware.

[stcredzero]

> booted ElementaryOS on it and trying to deal with the resolution issues from the 4K display was just a huge headache

Jeez. The sentence, "I booted distro-X on it and trying to deal with the resolution issues from was just a huge headache," is still true in 2018. People were saying things like this about Linux 15 years ago!

[Symbiote]

Windows 10 has resolution issues with HiDPI displays.

I find KDE to be fine with a single 4K display. I think the difficulties come with mixing a standard and a HiDPI screen.

[davidp]

Agreed. Pre-Wayland, Linux/X typically needs to treat all your screens as viewports onto a single virtual screen, which of course has to have a single DPI.

This is a more common use case than some folks might imagine. My laptop screen is HiDPI, but as soon as I plug into a projector or screen sharing device that acts as a second display, things get realllllly weird: Linux/X does not know how to dynamically change screen DPI without logout/login. I work around it by just running my laptop screen at "low" DPI. I don't miss it TBH; I suspect that many people who do notice it have better eyesight than me (possibly an age thing).

Wayland is supposed to help with this to some extent, but it's not yet ready for prime time.

[jay-saint]

Definitely this, I have a Thinkpad with Ubuntu 18.04, built in 4k display with 2 external 2k displays. I spent way too much time trying to get it to work. I just resorted to change magnification each time I dock/undock

[lostmsu]

What kind of issues? O-o

[wlesieutre]

And 4K is an easy one if you just want doubled density 1080p! I tried to set up a fractional scale once on a Surface Pro (Windows defaults to 1.5x) and the answer is "Set 2x in the UI, then configure xrandr to scale it back down 0.75x"

This was a few years ago, maybe things have improved.

[ac29]

To be fair, ElementaryOS is based on software from 2015/16 (Ubuntu 16.04). HiDPI support in Linux is better (though still not perfect) in 2018.

[zlynx]

You should have tried Fedora with Wayland Gnome. Its been working pretty well with HiDPI since F-25 and it's F-28 now.

Fedora still has some issues with mixing 1x and 2x DPI screens, but heh, so does Windows.

And yeah, you still have to manually edit the fonts for the virtual consoles and the GRUB boot, if you care. Otherwise keep a magnifier handy to edit the boot commands. ;-)