XFCE 4.20

[Wirtualny]

Since Wayland handling has experimental status in XFCE 4.20, will it be in MX Linux:

A) Disabled by default?
B) Enabled by default?
C) Partly enabled, and partly disabled?
D) Totally removed from stable?

[Jerry3904]

We've got to get testing first...

[Wirtualny]

Thank you!

[dreamer]

Does anyone know if they fixed their display resolution scaling, or perhaps the limitations of GTK for fractional scaling are at issue..? All I know is if you enter a number higher than 1 everything gets much smaller, not larger and numbers below 1 make things larger but blurry.. Neither option is great

GTK3 and gtk4 can only do integer scaling. This is the short answer. If you want something else you have to use xrandr (=blurriness). This is implemented in a confusing way in Xfce display settings. However, since you are using MX Linux it is implemented in a much cleaner way in MX Tweak (Display tab) in Xfce. In MX Tweak you will understand what you are doing since labels are clear. So this is a nice gift from MX devs to Xfce users.

From a wider perspective this is only relevant to Xfce users. But how to deal with gtk applications on a non-gtk desktop? The GDK_SCALE value can only work with integer values. I believe the GDK_DPI_SCALE value is what is used by Qt desktops to scale gtk applications. This is font scaling, but works to some extent since bigger font also expands gtk buttons and toolbars. The problem is widgets such as radio buttons and checkboxes that don’t generally respond to font scaling.

However there seems to be a new trend. Firefox and Chrome seem to scale everything (including gtk widgets) when set to a higher font dpi. It seems font dpi scaling (as originally intended) is slowly being phased out and might not work as originally intended on Wayland. I remember reading that Plasma 6 desktop has removed font dpi scaling from Wayland sessions.

Windows 11 also supports font dpi scaling but some applications like Chrome treats it like a global scale value and scales everything.

Since you use Enlightenment the only gtk value you need to worry about is GDK_DPI_SCALE (unless you have 4K or higher resolution). If you want to try Xfce use scale settings in MX Tweak and ignore Xfce display settings for that purpose. In fact (as others have stated on this forum), if you want to avoid blurriness, font dpi scaling will get you a long way on a gtk based desktop.

Regarding Xfce 4.20 I don’t think anything has changed for practical purposes. They have refined some things, but the basics above still hold true.

[MadMax]

Xfce is known to change up not too much from version to version. That's one of the big reasons it's my go-to choice for any Linux system. Main focus in development surely is Wayland and it's good to see Xfce picking up the pace and getting ready for the transition which will come sooner or later.

Regarding implementation into MX we shouldn't rush things. MAYBE we can think about putting it into MX 25 in ~1 year depending on when exactly Debian 13 will be released and what package version Debian will choose as their default.

[asqwerth]

...
Regarding implementation into MX we shouldn't rush things. MAYBE we can think about putting it into MX 25 in ~1 year depending on when exactly Debian 13 will be released and what package version Debian will choose as their default.

Don't think you need to worry about it, based on how 4.18 XFCE was introduced into MX21.

https://mxlinux.org/blog/xfce-4-18-comi ... -to-mx-21/


After the devs' own testing, the devs invited adventurous/experienced users to test the new version from a separate experimental repo.

[Stevo]

To forestall any questions, 4.20 doesn't seem possible to package for MX 21 because it would need at least a newer glib-2.0 (GTK base libraries), and probably many more. I am able to build 4.20 on vanilla Bookworm. I've finished the major packages for 4.20, but now there's quite a few panel widgets to build on top of those...I don't think the docklike plugin is in Debian, I need to research that.

[AVLinux]

Does anyone know if they fixed their display resolution scaling, or perhaps the limitations of GTK for fractional scaling are at issue..? All I know is if you enter a number higher than 1 everything gets much smaller, not larger and numbers below 1 make things larger but blurry.. Neither option is great

GTK3 and gtk4 can only do integer scaling. This is the short answer. If you want something else you have to use xrandr (=blurriness). This is implemented in a confusing way in Xfce display settings. However, since you are using MX Linux it is implemented in a much cleaner way in MX Tweak (Display tab) in Xfce. In MX Tweak you will understand what you are doing since labels are clear. So this is a nice gift from MX devs to Xfce users.

From a wider perspective this is only relevant to Xfce users. But how to deal with gtk applications on a non-gtk desktop? The GDK_SCALE value can only work with integer values. I believe the GDK_DPI_SCALE value is what is used by Qt desktops to scale gtk applications. This is font scaling, but works to some extent since bigger font also expands gtk buttons and toolbars. The problem is widgets such as radio buttons and checkboxes that don’t generally respond to font scaling.

However there seems to be a new trend. Firefox and Chrome seem to scale everything (including gtk widgets) when set to a higher font dpi. It seems font dpi scaling (as originally intended) is slowly being phased out and might not work as originally intended on Wayland. I remember reading that Plasma 6 desktop has removed font dpi scaling from Wayland sessions.

Windows 11 also supports font dpi scaling but some applications like Chrome treats it like a global scale value and scales everything.

Since you use Enlightenment the only gtk value you need to worry about is GDK_DPI_SCALE (unless you have 4K or higher resolution). If you want to try Xfce use scale settings in MX Tweak and ignore Xfce display settings for that purpose. In fact (as others have stated on this forum), if you want to avoid blurriness, font dpi scaling will get you a long way on a gtk based desktop.

Regarding Xfce 4.20 I don’t think anything has changed for practical purposes. They have refined some things, but the basics above still hold true.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, that actually clarifies some fundamental things I didn't fully understand. I did actually try MX Tweak for XFCE4 scaling but on my 4K monitor it also made things blurry. I don't know what Voodoo Enlightenment is using and despite its many quirks and critics I find it scales E, QT and GTK beautifully and seamlessly and the font, icon and widget resolution is very crisp. My brief KDE visit also had good scaling but some png Icons and Widgets were appearing with pixel artifacts. Anyway, at least I now have some more realistic expectations for what XFCE4 is capable of under the hood.

[Stevo]

It's now in our "temp" experimental repository, and the upgrades have gone smoothly, but I get a black screen of death with the experimental Wayland session. Other than that, it looks nice. I'll wait for an official announcement for testers. Maybe we can disable that wayland session in lightdm.

[dreamer]

It's now in our "temp" experimental repository, and the upgrades have gone smoothly, but I get a black screen of death with the experimental Wayland session. Other than that, it looks nice. I'll wait for an official announcement for testers. Maybe we can disable that wayland session in lightdm.

What Wayland compositor are you trying to use? The release notes say that Xfwm isn't ready for Wayland yet. I think they recommend Labwc or Wayfire as Wayland compositors. Also, the wayland-utils package needs to be installed I believe.