What is your working Linux setup and specs?

jordan

Hello - I am wanting to hear everyone's feedback on what Linux distro/version work for you. Also would like to hear what settings/tweaks done to Linux, graphics driver, what CPU/GPU, motherboard, and monitor that your using that is safe?

photon78s

You already know about my T480s with alternative panel on linux mint 21.3 and the legion 7i. I had a T500 running ubuntu from 2009 and I never experienced significant eye issues then. I did already know about PWM flicker and blue light but not temporal dithering and kept it at 100% brightness at much as possible. I don't know if it was an LED or CCFL panel but even if you have CCFL you still can have PWM issues just that the waveform is smoother and less straining for some.

Some people try to convert their thinkpad ccfl backlight to led backlight but with continuous drive controllers:
https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/thinkpad/led-backlight.shtml

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

photon78s You already know about my T480s with alternative panel

I don't know about your alternate panel, which one is it and why did you need to change from the original panel?

I'm thinking of getting a T480 (non-S though) with FHD screen (to run Windows with ditherig.exe on mainly) and wondering if there is anything I should be aware of or which panel manufacturer is the best.

jordan

photon78s Some reason my prior reply didn't go through that's weird. But yeah that's true, I ended up selling my 7i pro I didn't even want to bother with it if the panel still pixel flickers 😢 I did consider getting a t480 but I might just start with one of my desktops first. I just dunno what a good start is. Ill even consider building my old z390 PC that was once good at one point.

Speaking of ccfl my TV uses that and I played with the settings and I got the pwm frequency super high and it actually isn't bad at all on my eyes maybe strainy after watching TV a little but it's connected to a apple tv. When I had my crypto PC connected to it I think it was better than the apple tv. I wonder if there is a high PWM ccfl monitor? Obviously gonna be 60hz though.

photon78s

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs
I don't know which manufacture is "best" but I found this alternate panel has less pixel flicker under the microscope for the T480s:
https://www.panelook.com/B140QAN02.3_AUO_14.0_LCM_overview_33893.html

My T480s came from factory with this LG unit:
https://www.panelook.com/LP140QH2-SPB1_LG%20Display_14.0_LCM_overview_40282.html

Both are 2560x1440 IPS 60hz.

The only problem with the AUO B140 panel is that it starts to pixel flicker after a couple hours or maybe less time of continuous usage. I turn it off for the rest of the day and the next morning it would show no pixel flicker at all. Still the T480s with no nvidia mx150 just the intel igpu works for me either with windows 11 with ditherig or linux mint (my preference for eyestrain and non work related usage).

The keyboard backlight on my T480s at least doesn't flicker like those on my 2023 legion 7i. No fancy rgb bling which is good thing imo. I turn off or cover all these lights anyways.

macsforme

I am keenly interested in this thread/question as well, although I don’t personally have much to add, being only a sporadic user of Linux. In theory, I would expect Linux to be a friendly operating system for us, given that most components are open-source (granted, not all GPU drivers/blobs), there are several alternatives for window managers/compositors, and many settings can be tweaked. Disappointingly, it seems that several people have reported strain on Linux as well. Hopefully we can identify the safe versions/configurations/etc.

I could see myself using Linux as my main desktop OS someday, if safe for the eyes. Despite being a lifelong Mac user, per the info in other threads here, I sense modern macOS has become our adversary due to the inherent nature/design of its rendering pipeline. I can use Windows 10 at work, at least on my particular hardware (I know others here cannot), but I take exception to Microsoft’s cloud-centric vision for my user data so it will not be my primary OS for personal use.

jordan

macsforme I definitely think Linux is going to be the move for a modern OS because it seems if we figure out dithering then the only other thing would be os strain which seems to be able to be fixed in Linux unlike windows. Linux has open source drivers too so we should be able to tweak things as we want. I just dunno where to start with Linux myself. I did read this thread https://psychtoolbox.discourse.group/t/dithering-with-ubuntu-22-04-md-radeon-pro-wx-3200-viewpixx/4517/11

Which seems certain kernels are ok for certain GPUs while others aren't. That forum is for Neuroscience researchers which require zero Dithering so definitely some helpful info there. Certain kernel is good up to Polaris gen Radeon cards while newer GPUs require a newer kernel or something ?

Also I emailed the company that makes the hardware for those researchers. Their $8k tool that also has a capture card + SW to check dithering supposedly passed their test in win11 as is with the Rx 6600 XT while in Linux it needed some tweaking. Seems like there's some cards that are fine as is for both OS's but I think Linux has the higher chance of making a problem card work.

photon78s

Might be worth a read:

https://psychtoolbox.discourse.group/t/dithering-issue-with-amd-graphic-card-linux-ubuntu/3760

I can tell you that my 7i (set to dynamic gpu in bios) on mint 21.3 with nouveau 1.0.17-2build1 driver does not seem to remove any pixel flicker. I do see a banding line in lagrom's gradient image and no further banding subdivision in blooey's test gradient. Image is opened in xviewer in mint.

Also, anyone have experience with framework's mainboards like their 11th gen intel igpu model running linux?

jordan

photon78s I'll give that a read. I think the 7i panel might be dithering regardless due to the newer pcon. I also did hear about VCOM from another member which is green vertical lines. I believe If you zoom in up close on a camera so you can see the pixels (not microscope close) and you record a vid and play it back in slow speed it should be visible with vertical bars. I am wondering if that is another thing adding to these display issues.

Someone in the led eye strain telegram said their framework laptop didn't feel good on their eyes

simplex

photon78s

this is what Jordan mention about vertical green lines: https://filetransfer.io/data-package/ueb6hluo

this vcom pattern is very visible at 60hz ( M270DAN02.B panel ), row flickering works in pure 6/8/10bit mode with all dithering OFF (ColorControl, Ditherig, in z390 or z690 motherboard). I suppose it could be an issue of eye-strain, even in datasheet manufacturer advice to use " 120...165hz for better image quality " coz high framerate mask that sheet

Video recorded at 60fps for 60hz display mode, all camera sharpness and noise-reduction were in minimum

macsforme

jordan Speaking of ccfl my TV uses that and I played with the settings and I got the pwm frequency super high and it actually isn't bad at all on my eyes maybe strainy after watching TV a little but it's connected to a apple tv. When I had my crypto PC connected to it I think it was better than the apple tv.

As an aside, tvOS 17 hurts my eyes whereas tvOS 16 was comfortable (on a projector). I don’t know exactly what changed. I did plug in my video capture device to check for temporal dithering, and there was none detected (unless it’s inconsistent between output devices).

Of course, Apple doesn’t let you go back, and updates are either automatic or you get constantly nagging reminders to install them. They are easily triggered by children playing with the remote. 🤦🏻‍♂️ I’ve been through three or four Apple TV devices and keep having to scrounge for the ones with a recent tvOS 16 on eBay. I’m currently trying to figure out how to block updates with a firewall or custom DNS server.

photon78s

jordan

Add to that the unit variance in 7i panels. I'm still trying to get the datasheet on my particular panel:

https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NZ3_BOE_16.0_LCM_parameter_59368.html

Have you or have someone non-sensitive tried measuring the "safer" ccfl TV with oscilloscope and also its color spectrum?

On the frameworks, I was thinking of the use case of just using the mainboard standalone not the laptop which uses BOE panels. Might be another option to test linux distros and external monitors. They have a custom mainboard enclosure for this type of application.

photon78s

I want to make sure I understand what you mean by PCON and VCOM? We know that TCON is the timing controller.

PCON is protocol converter as stated here on intel arc gpu:

https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/HDMI-2-1-UHD-144Hz-Arc-A750-A770/m-p/1452946

VCOM is common plane voltage of the lcd panel:

https://www.ti.com/lit/an/slaae46/slaae46.pdf?ts=1718149051382

simplex

photon78s VCOM is common plane voltage of the lcd panel:

Yep, and technology to refresh pixels describes in the end of 26's page -> https://filetransfer.io/data-package/wwWyZN8l

My video above is how vcom's work looks in reallife

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

macsforme and there was none detected (unless it’s inconsistent between output devices).

yeah, output is probably totally different depending on which display EDID the target device sends

jordan

macsforme the tvos16 wasn't ok with a tv? I think there is definitely strain on my apple tv, I don't use it much it's on the latest os. I was thinking of picking up a 2017 Nvidia stream box to replace it.

One thing I noticed on apple tv is that there is a RGB low and RGB high setting. Wouldn't low be the most safe ?

jordan

photon78s
I reached out to a ali supplier to see if I can obtain the datasheet for you.

Yeah I did test my TV and it has significantly less blue light compared to other screens. Also the frequency isn't bad at all after playing with the settings. I had to change quite a few settings if I remember correctly because before it was super strobey. This is the only LCD device that doesn't make me feel weird. So maybe the ccfl backlighting has something to do with it too. Possibly polarization orientation too? Gotta find some glasses to see if it's black looking to check how it's polarized. I think I should pickup a u2711 dell ccfl monitor to try.

Edit:
That's interesting about the framework custom motherboard I'll have to look into it.

macsforme

jordan the tvos16 wasn't ok with a tv?

I only have a projector, but tvOS 16 was good/comfortable whereas tvOS 17 was bad/uncomfortable.

Regarding the RGB Low/High versus YCbCr, I did mess with those settings (and others) while trying to fix the strain with tvOS 17, but I wasn’t successful. In any case, I believe I was already on the recommended setting for a TV/projector at the time.

photon78s

jordan

Thanks so much! It's unfortunate that the 7i was not the solution that it look like at first. Also got rid of my m2 macbook.

That color spectrum looks wonderful compared with the LED displays! And what about pixel flicker measurements?

jordan

photon78s you're welcome! I thought the 7i would've fit the bill but with that con chip that I think is in all new displays sounds like it could be causing the dithering so I just didn't want to deal with that.
Sounds like the m2 MacBook didn't work then ?

Right! I thought the same, I don't think there's enough blue light to cause blue light toxicity + having green and red light can supposedly mitigate blue light effects too. The pixel flicker measurements is shown in some of those pictures, 24686hz. I am also getting a radex lupin soon too.

photon78s

jordan

Would be interesting to see microscope videos of the pixel flicker and pixel inversion of the ccfl display. The framework just has an custom case for their mainboards but they do support ubuntu and fedora (https://frame.work/linux)

Yup, the macbook does not stop pixel flickering. I think I've adapted somewhat to my particular 7i (at 240hz refresh rate only) so I'm keeping it along with the T480s. Perhaps their is additional stress from changing devices so frequently as your body and eyes are exposed to different stimuli and has to expend extra energy to adjust to the differences. If you've had the TV for a longer period of time, maybe adaptation is one factor to your experience?

photon78s

jordan

what is the model of your ccfl tv, the one that has less blue light spectrum peak?

jordan

photon78s maybe I can have my dad record it sometime with a microscope. I just am sensitive to seeing different colored pixels up close, pattern sensitivity so I wouldn't do it myself.

The thing is I used my TV prior on bad settings and it was only till more recently that I changed the settings and found out how to get it to the high pwm frequency. There's some devices that wreck me instantly that I'm not able to adapt to but I think some devices maybe that is needed if the initial symptoms arent too bad