FreeBSD on futuristic screens

kpedersen said:
People would soon realise that having a transparent monitor would have little use. You would have to place it in front of a very blank (preferably white) wall, to be able to make out any of the text on it.
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I didn't watch it all the way through, but at the end he says "potentially transparent".
 
balanga said:
Can we ever expect to be able use these sort of displays with FreeBSD?
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Yes, and a totally redundant question if I may say. I skimmed through the awful AI generated video. It's a normal 2D monitor. We've been using 2D monitors on computers since 50 years ago. It is the job of graphics card to run it, not the OS. Over other side of the cable it is the job of the driver/upscaler board inside the monitor to drive the panel, regardless if it's a 80s plasma LCD or 2030s transparent element panel.

What you may not be able to run on FreeBSD of near-future tech are 3D displays such as volumetric displays that are used for showing static 3D content. Those do not run a standard video signal, they're not monitors but visualization devices and FreeBSD is probably not the target for anyone there.
 
I'm starting to think anything much larger than 27" is too large for a computer monitor, unless its for specialist applications like graphics or video work. The physical screen has to be small enough to more or less fit withing your field of view when you're sitting 2-3 feet away from it. I don't see the appeal of putting a computer screen on the wall. There must also be a limit where increasing resolution, ie shrinking dot-pitch, doesn't make any noticable difference. It would be interesting to see a 27" 8K screen, I wonder how that compares to 4K. Transparency doesn't win me over at all, it seems pretty pointless, apart from the novelty. Curved doesn't appeal to me either.. Well, maybe both features have applications in gaming; I'm sure someone will think of a way to use it.

The monitors in the video are still using an emitted light technology. I would be more interested in a true reflected light technology that looks something like a printed colour magazine page, like a kind of high res, high speed, high contrast, color e-ink, although I don't think there is any such technology in existence at present. Emitted light has some problems; the eye always has to accommodate to looking at a light source, while also trying to focus on the screen image, it's like the sun is always in front of you and in your eyes. Any photographer will tell you that the best shots are taken when the sun is behind you. But I think what I'm thinking of, is a long way off being developed.
 
I have a large monitor, 32" and for my workflow, it's often useful, e.g, several terminals and a web browser open. As for the transparent stuff---when I had younger eyes, I would run fluxbox with a transparent terminal on moderately dark, bluish I think, background with white text. As I got older, it seems less cool and also harder on the eyes. But for awhile, I did enjoy it. For me, at least, I get bored with what I consider interesting effects quickly, and as my eyes have gotten worse with age, ease of reading is my first priority.
 
scottro said:
I have a large monitor, 32" and for my workflow, it's often useful, e.g, several terminals and a web browser open. As for the transparent stuff---when I had younger eyes, I would run fluxbox with a transparent terminal on moderately dark, bluish I think, background...
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Sure, I was really talking about the whole monitor being transparent, not having a terminal that shows the root window as the background. One that you can see the other side of the room through, like they show off in the video. It probably looks good in the exhibition hall for novelty value, but I can't really see the practical value. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned 😄
 
blackbird9, that makes sense. I don't think a huge, transparent monitor would work for me. As you said, it probably looks good in the exhibition hall, but I suspect I'd get tired of it quickly. (Like I did with the transparent terminals when I tried them).
 
scottro said:
As for the transparent stuff---when I had younger eyes, I would run fluxbox with a transparent terminal on moderately dark, bluish I think, background with white text. As I got older, it seems less cool and also harder on the eyes. But for awhile, I did enjoy it. For me, at least, I get bored with what I consider interesting effects quickly, and as my eyes have gotten worse with age, ease of reading is my first priority.
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This has nothing to do with age. Worse eyes by age only make such things more apparent. If you are younger it takes more time to tire. But you tire the same percentage by such a toy like a greybeard.

You don't need extra install or change to a certain WM/DE that provides transparency. There are tools like picom which can provide such features to (almost) any (X) WM (There are for sure others, also Wayland, but I don't know, 'cause I don't give a... don't care.)
I played a while myself with transparent windows.
Admitted: It really looks very cool.
But that's it.
A couple of weeks later I deinstalled this garbage again.
Point is: Having a transparent terminal over a non homogeneous background simply do make the detection of characters more difficult.
Example (just randomly picked, no offense meant): FreeBSD Screen Shots #2,498
Open the pic, zoom in and read the the text in the large top left window. Don't just look at it, read it!
Now imagine working concentrated this style on text, like coding. It's way more tiring than without transparency; compare with e.g. FreeBSD Screen Shots #2,496

Transparency is pure decoration lowering productivity.
Apart from the number of features - people prefer more choices and options, while at the same time they avoid any learning about them, even what choices there are. The number counted is enough - eyecandy sells to today's morons.
Quality, taste, productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, energy consumption, usability, rational,...if it even works at all, doesn't matter. Most cannot even judge nor value any of those point.
It must look cool. If it looks cool, it's sold.
 
scottro said:
I have a large monitor, 32" and for my workflow
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Ya - I have a large 38" monitor on my workflow (FreeBSD) and I also don't have young eyes anymore :cool:. To be honest I have never liked small screens on a computer or laptop -- particularly when working at the command line (aka shell, coding, etc). And when I game I REALLY like a large screen for that! I usually buy Laptops with 16" or 17" screens.

I am actually still very interested in a Dasung E-Ink screen for (FreeBSD) - and someone got that working really well on (FreeBSD) recently. I might bite the bullet and get one of these as a second monitor on (FreeBSD). I wrote about this on the Forums back in January:

(Link FreeBSD Forums): FreeBSD 15 Workstation: Hyprland on 4K + Dasung E-ink
 
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