Hello, After years of basically impossible to work on any linux desktop for more than a few hours I finally found a linux distro that fixes my eyestrain and does font rendering correctly. It's an Arch based rolled distro that is very mature called: MANJARO https://manjaro.org/ I run the gnome desktop manager (Aldo i don't like it, it gives me the best font rendering and color combination) with the default settings and it's been great. Apparently Manjaro changes the Arch Linux font settings to a sort of Freetype2 font and they do it correctly. Please let me know if you have any questions or what your experiences are. Cheers

Vic Very interesting, should be possible to port the distro changes to others as well 😃

Vic Can you find out what changes were made in the ditro to make it work vs other distro's? And congrats onthe find!

Vic The current regular Arch Linux is not usable for you?

Of all the sytems, I have tried this causes the least strain thus far. Monjaro I mean I made a comment on the Manjaro thread and they basically called me crazy. much disagreement. I am using the XFCE edition. i am pretty sure it has zero color management. but dont quote me https://forum.manjaro.org/t/why-manjaro-causes-less-eye-strain-than-other-distros-of-linux/25686

I use regular Arch and currently it is very usable for me, too. I believe we should share our graphics cards, drivers we use, desktop environments, font settings, and any compositing settings. My setup: Graphics Card: NVIDIA Quadro NVS 295 Driver: nouveau + xf86-video-nouveau Desktop: Xfce Font settings (in Xfce Appearance): Antialiasing on, Antialiasing method: subpixel rendering (RGB ), Hinting slight, no custom DPI Compositor: Xfce compositor, enabled (in Windows Manager Tweaks), Vsync on Also look for any existing local or global configuration files that may override or set font settings silently ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_configuration ). There may also be .conf files in /etc/X11 and subdirectories that change video output. There may be files in your home directory that tell your graphics driver to use special settings. The only other thing that I know I did is to try to make sure that temporal dithering is turned off by running an xrender command. But that's specific to the nouveau kernel mode driver and is probably a placebo because it should be turned off by default anyway ( https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/Dithering/ ).

KM KM Also look for any existing local or global configuration files that may override or set font settings silently ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_configuration ). There may also be .conf files in /etc/X11 and subdirectories that change video output. There may be files in your home directory that tell your graphics driver to use special settings. Great Input. Valuable info that i would have had to comb throught text to find. KM The only other thing that I know I did is to try to make sure that temporal dithering is turned off by running an xrender command. But that's specific to the nouveau kernel mode driver and is probably a placebo because it should be turned off by default anyway ( https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/Dithering/ ). This as well. hard to believe its just a command line away. If i may. Can I ask which type of lights you use? Also, do you have a monitor that utilizes dithering? Thank you. KM My setup: Graphics Card: NVIDIA Quadro NVS 295 Driver: nouveau + xf86-video-nouveau Desktop: Xfce Font settings (in Xfce Appearance): Antialiasing on, Antialiasing method: subpixel rendering (RGB ), Hinting slight, no custom DPI Compositor: Xfce compositor, enabled (in Windows Manager Tweaks), Vsync on My Setup: Graphic Card: RX 570 Driver: AMDGPU-PRO, same as AMDGPU (opensource version) but with a proprietary overlay. Going between both. Desktop: Mainly still Ubuntu, Also Windows and Manjaro Font settings: stock in all systems Compositor: just installed unity-system-compositor to see if it makes a difference.

Wrightpt1 If i may. Can I ask which type of lights you use? Also, do you have a monitor that utilizes dithering? Thank you. I mostly don't use any lights. If I do, it's good old 60W E27 incandescent bulbs. The monitor BenQ EW2740L I currently use should not use temporal dithering.

KM Thank you. Is this the best VA panel you have used thus far?

Wrightpt1 It's by far the best and sadly hard to get nowadays.

KM Hard to find is right. I am deciding between getting that monitor and the Samsung Va with Quantum color that felt like a backrub when i looked at it. Your graphics card is so cheap as well. That looks extremely temping. maybe my RX 570 is not the best for me. This is so depressing but i i will decide. Does covering up your leds on your tower with black tape fit the bill for you. Are you able to work and focus without strain with the tower in the same room? Can I ask if the gaphics card you use has any leds on it?

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

ensete

Recently installed Lubuntu 18.04 on some old hardware and zero eye strain.

reaganry

ensete lubuntu is better for you than xcfe options, manjaro etc?

orangepeel

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.

reaganry

reaganry hey lububtu 1804 working pretty good indeed. Manjaro was problematic. hanks!

Sunspark

"old hardware"

In anycase, lubuntu is lxqt desktop environment which uses the QT widgets and most of the time kwin compositor, so if both of them work for you, then KDE Plasma should also work as it uses both of those.

My problem is that while I have a working KDE Plasma environment on my deck that I tuned everything to look nice on, I prefer the Windows UI. 🙁

karut

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

reaganry

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

karut

Lubuntu 18.04 support ended almost a year ago unfortunately.

Do you happen to have tried Pop OS as a distro?

reaganry

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

reaganry

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

orangepeel

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.

ensete

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

KM

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.

orangepeel

I tried your suggestion on my bad laptop, a Thinkpad T440 with an Intel iGPU and Ubuntu 20.04. I can confirm there's a significant difference in the image when compositing is turned off on Xfce. The image becomes more stable. But the T440 still gives me a very bad feeling that comes on quickly, so the more still image hasn't helped. I haven't tested this on my T440P (Intel iGPU) that is usable with Windows 10 or my good Ideapad (AMD APU) that is good with Ubuntu 18.04.

I'm wondering whether we should be trying to test more laptops and PCs that have AMD APUs.

Sunspark

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

KM

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.).

KM

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

ensete

orangepeel 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.

I'm no Linux expert, but I set up a new Lubuntu 18.04 in a VM and it wasn't as pleasant on the eyes as RDP'ing onto my Mini PC I have Lubunutu installed on. I checked the kernel version's and they are 5.4 on both. I downgraded the VM to 4.15, didn't see that much of a difference.

I am assuming now that xrdp offers a better display than the VM display. More testing to come.

Donux

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.

jstewart

Donux amdgpu.dither is not a real module parameter:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v6.8/gpu/amdgpu/module-parameters.html

This is a chatgpt hallucination. There must be something else about your setup which helps alleviate your symptoms.

Sunspark

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.

Donux

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

ensete I like to receive security updates in a system I use for work

orangepeel

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.

ensete

karut If you prefer to have a "secure" system that you can't use due to eyestrain, well that's a choice I guess.

"Security" is the most overblown term thrown around in computing. 99.9% of PC security is between the chair and the keyboard, and Linux itself is such an insanely small vector for attacks it's laughable to be concerned about it.

My daily driver laptop I use around the house runs Windows XP. Never had a "security" issue with it ever. Don't install software you don't know, don't click on links in in email, and you are just as secure as any fully updated "secure" OS. This isn't the movies where top secret NSA hackers are going to run 0 day exploits to get into your PC and download the launch codes. 99.99% of PC "security" threats are scammers trying to bilk you into buying them gift cards or crypto

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