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  • Linux - investigating eye strain problem

5 months later

I'm late to the party, but I've suffered from eye strain/pain for several months. Tried different distros and different laptops with Intel and NVIDIA GPUs. No matter what settings I tried I could never fix my issue. So, I kept going back to Windows/WSL2.
Now, I'd like to report that my eye strain is finally gone! My solution was to buy a QD-OLED monitor (specifically, the HP Omen Transcend.) But I assume any other QD-OLED monitor should work.
On this new monitor, everything looks crystal clear! No matter which laptop or Graphics card I use. Even my Raspberry Pi 400 looks clear.
It did take a few days for my eyes to adjust to the new monitor, but it was worth it!
While I was struggling with this, besides trying software/hardware configurations, I also had my eyes checked.
Now, I'm running Ubuntu 24.04 with the default setup, except I installed fonts-ubuntu-classic, nvidia-driver-550 (although the nouveau driver was working fine as well.) My laptop does not have a DiplayPort, so I'm using USB-C (But HDMI also works fine)
In any case, I thought I'd share this hoping that it helps someone else!

    jaymdev Hi. Can you explain what symptoms did you have? Burning eyes? Red eyes? Or something else? What did you mean by "it did take a few days for my eyes to adjust…"?

    I had burning eyes and eye pain (mostly on my left eye) I also had headaches concentrated around the left eye.

    These symptoms always happened while using Linux, but not windows 10/11 on the same exact hardware.

    I was using LED IPS monitors (BenQ GW2485TC) for a couple of years. I kept dual booting Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Pop OS!, Fedora, Arch, Manjaro). Arch/XFCE worked best out of all distros, but still not as good as Windows.

    The first couple of days with the new qd-oled monitor I still had the same mild symptoms, to the point where I thought it wouldn’t work for me and I was going to have to return it. But the following day, the symptoms were gone and I can use it for extended sessions comfortably. I’ve only had it for about a week now though, and I’m hoping the symptoms won’t return.

    I switched from LED IPS FHD to QD-OLED UHD. I’m now wondering if a good quality IPS (maybe UHD or 4K) may also solve this problem.

      jaymdev

      Your new monitor may have a true 10-bit panel. According to the Linux kernel code, some graphics cards have limit at 10-bit, and at this limit, dithering is not used. However, this may not apply to your situation, as it all depends on the driver and the model of the graphics card.

      a month later

      jaymdev do you still use this screen without any eyestrain?

      If so, could you please check the frequency PWM on this monitor?

      dev