• OS

  • I found a Linux distro that fixes my eyestrain with the default setup!!

reaganry so perhaps it's the old drivers and kernel that comes with such an "old" distro? Are you updated to the latest packages?

      karut i think so, all but apt dist upgrade. videos still seem to cause brain fog though. My current hypothesis is the kernels get updated to be able to handle the rendering on the newest games

        Im hopeful there will be a way to enable 'limited blacks' and that will make video useable

        karut pop was pretty bad for me. Try manjaro and let us know

          If you try a Linux distro, the first thing you should do is make sure the desktop itself is not using hardware acceleration. For example, on my currently "safe" machine that I have set up with Debian Bookworm, Xfce and Xfce's compositing disabled, if I instead boot Fedora, I get instant severe eye strain. And the reason seems to be Fedora's hardware-accelerated Gnome desktop.
          Of course, there could be hardware and driver combinations for which Fedora is perfectly usable. But this was just an example to keep in mind that most probably hardware acceleration is causing this eye strain, and that includes certain applications, too. To rule applications out (i.e. web browsers), simply stare at the desktop while waiting for the eye strain to kick in. If it doesn't kick in, only then can you move on to test applications.

            I would suggest trying compiz as the compositor instead of what is selected as a default.

            @KM You should try selecting compiz in your XFCE setup, then turn acceleration back on. I think it'll be fine. https://wiki.debian.org/Compiz

            Using a Ryzen APU as my graphics card, I'm currently happy with amdgpu's TearFree option. Not only does it eliminate tearing and artifacts, but as opposed to software compositors, there's only very little lag when moving elements (windows, scrollbars, etc.).

            7 days later

            One environment variable is particularly useful:

            LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1

            You can start an application by preceding its command with this variable, and then its GL hardware acceleration should be disabled. I tested this with Firefox, Chromium, and an OpenGL game (UnCiv).

            For example, to start Chromium from a command line:

            $ LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 chromium

            It is worth to check out if this helps with applications that are causing instant eye strain. This environment variable and others can be found here: https://docs.mesa3d.org/envvars.html

            To start a program from a desktop launcher/menu, you can use the env command:

            env LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 chromium
            5 days later

            ensete What Linux kernel are you using? I use Ubuntu 18.04 with Linux kernel 4.15.0-x and I have no eyestrain. Ubuntu 18.04 has two different kernels -- 4.15 and 5.4. I don't use kernel 5.4 because this kernel gives me eyestrain and headaches.

            I used Ubuntu 18.04 with kernel 4.15.0-x for years. Then last year I reinstalled Ubuntu 18.04, but the display became very harsh and gave me a headache. Then I noticed that it had kernel 5.4 and not kernel 4.15. So I installed kernel 4.15, booted into GRUB, and selected kernel 4.15 and the eyestrain disappeared and the screen was easy on the eyes! Kernel 5.4 turned my good laptop (ideapad 110) into a bad laptop.

                karut Ubuntu 18.04 with the Linux kernel 4.15.0.x gets security updates until 2028 through Ubuntu Pro ESM which is free. This is what I use. On my good laptop I get eyestrain and headaches from the 5.4 kernel but not from the 4.15 kernel. Both kernels 4.15 and 5.4 are available on Ubuntu 18.04. The latest releases of Ubuntu 18.04 come with kernel 5.4, so you need to install kernel 4.15 and then boot into GRUB and select kernel 4.15.

                  For me newest Ubuntu 22.04 works fine after some tinkering (AMD GPU):

                  • Wayland -> eye strain
                  • Wayland + GRUB amdgpu.dither=0 -> eye strain
                  • X11 + GRUB amdgpu.dither=0 + X11 code to disable dithering and make tear free (chatgbt) -> Instant relief, very very noticeable, definitely not placebo as with various macbook tinkering solutions where you never sure.

                  X11 code:

                  sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/amdgpu.conf

                  Section "Device"
    Identifier "AMDGPU"
    Driver "amdgpu"
    Option "Dither" "off"
EndSection

                  All these settings using external monitor on profile sRGB and ubuntu standard sRGB color profile (not monitor profile). And not really sure which one is actually making a difference.

                    Other than the fact the conf file is missing a match line, this won't work because the property isn't there.

                    Type xrandr --prop in the terminal to see the list of properties you can call. Dither won't be there.

                      karut Who really cares about when "official" support ended. It's not like the OS will stop working.

                          Sunspark There is no option Dither in the list so probably conf is not making a anything there. So its either then GRUB code or color profile setting to sRGB standard. And of course the fact of not using wayland, which I find to be very high eye strain on linux.

                            karut In case you missed my message above, Ubuntu 18.04 gets security updates until 2028 through Ubuntu Pro ESM. AlmaLinux gets security updates until 2029.

                            With Ubuntu you have the option of using kernel 4.15 and with AlmaLinux (binary-compatible with RHEL) you have the option of using kernel 4.18.

                            I think these are the two oldest kernels that will receive security updates for the next 4-5 years.

                              9 days later

                              So some guidelines until now are using X11, some older kernel and disabling hardware acceleration?
                              Also, arch and manjaro should use pretty new kernels, they are rolling distros, but the posts were made in 2017, so maybe that's when the version 4 of the kernel was used.

                              I tried lot of distros of Linux with almost every desktop manager and got eye strain. There is a way to disable that eye strain in Linux? I can’t use my PC because of that, it will be helpful

                                twomee mint version 20 someone said was as comfortable as windows 7 but also use Nvidia open source drivers I was told. I haven't tried it yet

                                  dev