Eye strain on Linux but not on windows.[Problem]

[MJ104]

Previous month I switched to Zorin OS from windows. Used it for 5 6 days than I started realizing Zorin was causing way too much eye strain for me. So, I started looking for fixes theming, font sizes and types(tried windows fonts) and night light thingy etc. but nothing worked for me after 7th day just 2 hours of computer usage started causing headaches and my eyes start to explode. Then I looked into forum and found out that something called Temporal Dithering could be the reason I tried disabling it, but Nvidia X Server was not working properly could find a way to do it using terminal, a lot of persons on stackoverflow gave suggestions but all of their commands failed, then I reached the point I realized I don't know what I am doing. So, I made the switch to another distro thinking might be issue with Zorin OS but no, elementary OS, Mint and Fedora, MX I had same issue so i switched back to windows 2 days ago when I could not take any more abuse to my eyes. Now I don't have the eye strain just i night sleep and I have been using my laptop for a day and didn't even realize.

 

I just wanted to ask if someone else here had the same issue and found a fix. I really want to move to Linux environment as I love the customizability it offers, but this eye problem is the biggest hurdle. So, it would be nice if someone here has some suggestion or experience with it.

[Sauron]

It's hard to say what you could do without knowing what the cause for your problem is, perhaps your screen is a bit too bright and zorin uses lighter colors than windows thus causing more strain? most linux distributions have a dark theme you can try. if this is a laptop try turning off automatic screen brightness and lowering it manually.

[MJ104]

Hi Sauron nice name I'm watching LOTR Rings of power btw, Bro I tried black theme other themes from gnome looks and also tried different brightness levels, but none worked it was still causing the eye strain. I found a similar problem with a guy on ubuntu forums I think, he also made the switch back to windows. Did not find anything working. But forum wa pretty old so i thought maybe someone found the fix.

[The Hope]

You can install ttf-ms-fonts (and other popular Microsoft font packages).

If you set them to the same size and use anti-aliasing they will look exactly the same as on windows computers.

 

A second thing you should do is use a dark theme. The latest Gnome versions have made it easy to switch to a dark theme right away and also in KDE Plasma and XFCE it's easy to use dark themes.

 

I would also lower your screen brightness in Linux.

 

With these three changes, I don't think there are any factors left that could have a significant impact.

[The Hope]

In fact, no studies have ever been done on which of the two systems gives the most eye strain in general. Although this would be an interesting study. Without a doubt, many people also have eye strain with windows:

 

https://www.quora.com/Are-Mac-screens-easier-on-the-eyes-than-Windows-My-eyes-hurt-after-reading-on-a-Windows-computer-but-not-on-a-Mac-Does-the-Mac-have-a-better-screen-for-reading-with-less-strain?share=1

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/dizzyeye-strain-from-display-on-windows-10-or/48038061-e09d-4b69-a43f-2d3d6f877938

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/eye-strain-and-headache-when-using-windows-10-is/3a0cc675-cb7c-4901-af27-480687cc1371

 

https://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Computer-Eye-Strain-by-Switching-to-High-Contrast-(Windows-7)

 

https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10s-dark-mode-kind-sucks-when-compared-macos-mojaves-dark-mode

 

https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/10909-windows-10-making-eyes-head-hurt-3.html

 

 

It seems when you analyze everything that windows of all operating systems is probably going to cause the most eye strain.

[The Hope]

1 hour ago, MJ104 said:

I found a similar problem with a guy on ubuntu forums I think, he also made the switch back to windows. Did not find anything working. But forum wa pretty old so i thought maybe someone found the fix.

Can't it just be that your eyes are more used to working with windows? Maybe if you use Zorin for a few more weeks your eyes/head will get used to it and the problem will go away automatically.

 

Something you can also try is to enable Force Full Composition Pipeline in your Nvidia settings. It eliminates any kind of screen tearing when it uses the Nvidia GPU, which is often a problem on Nvidia laptops. You probably have Nvidia Optimus technology, where the Intel chip is your laptop's GPU for light graphics tasks. You might end up trying to use Wayland on that laptop, it's always pixel-perfect. Linux on Nvidia laptops with xorg is very prone to screen tearing and other problems. So try using Wayland.

[The Hope]

You can calibrate your laptop in Linux so that it emits less backlight.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Backlight

 

Or you can (also) calibrate the colors, so that it emits less blue light.

 

For KDE Plasma its simple as opening Gamma settings.

For Gnome https://ak737.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-simple-color-calibration-guide-for.html

Or: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ICC_profiles#Gnome_Color_Manager

There may be other software.

 

 

[10leej]

Have you tried a tool like redshift yet just to see if it's blue light issue?

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/redshift

https://github.com/jonls/redshift

https://itsfoss.com/install-redshift-linux-mint/

[Kiba Snowpaw]

I do most of my fixes by changing settings on the screen settings itself, so I don't feel like my eyes get tired as fast. However, I still get eye strain even on windows since I use many hours in front of my PC. And I have to say I have not felt it was worse on Linux than it was on windows. I have not used Zorin OS, so I can't talk about that one, but I have used some of the most popular distros out there, and the one I'm on atm is garuda. Also, the room light has as much to say. I find a simi-dark monitor in a dark room to be more relaxing than a simi-dark monitor in a fully lighted room since I feel like my eyes have to compensate for the room light, which makes my eyes more tired. So many things depend on your eyesight that can tire your eyes besides the light from the monitor alone. That's my personal opinion.

[MJ104]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:45 PM, The Hope said:

Can't it just be that your eyes are more used to working with windows? Maybe if you use Zorin for a few more weeks your eyes/head will get used to it and the problem will go away automatically.

 

Something you can also try is to enable Force Full Composition Pipeline in your Nvidia settings. It eliminates any kind of screen tearing when it uses the Nvidia GPU, which is often a problem on Nvidia laptops. You probably have Nvidia Optimus technology, where the Intel chip is your laptop's GPU for light graphics tasks. You might end up trying to use Wayland on that laptop, it's always pixel-perfect. Linux on Nvidia laptops with xorg is very prone to screen tearing and other problems. So try using Wayland.

could be but it was becoming unbearable so moved back would try wayland solution next time. And my nvidia drivers were not working, it showed blank window, tried installing driver manually and i ended up making it worse.

[MJ104]

20 hours ago, Kiba Snowpaw said:

I do most of my fixes by changing settings on the screen settings itself, so I don't feel like my eyes get tired as fast. However, I still get eye strain even on windows since I use many hours in front of my PC. And I have to say I have not felt it was worse on Linux than it was on windows. I have not used Zorin OS, so I can't talk about that one, but I have used some of the most popular distros out there, and the one I'm on atm is garuda. Also, the room light has as much to say. I find a simi-dark monitor in a dark room to be more relaxing than a simi-dark monitor in a fully lighted room since I feel like my eyes have to compensate for the room light, which makes my eyes more tired. So many things depend on your eyesight that can tire your eyes besides the light from the monitor alone. That's my personal opinion.

I wanted to go with manjaro but i just realized first time Linux should be started with ubuntu based distro according to experts. Secondly i needed Unity Game Engine so, easy-peasy on ubuntu based

[The Hope]

46 minutes ago, MJ104 said:

I wanted to go with manjaro but i just realized first time Linux should be started with ubuntu based distro according to experts. Secondly i needed Unity Game Engine so, easy-peasy on ubuntu based

Although Manjaro is one of the user-friendly Linux distros, I would indeed say that Ubuntu is even easier.

 

Mint is probably one of the only ones that is even simpler than standard Ubuntu.

Another advantage of Mint is that their UIs have a calming effect in some way. I don't know how else to say it, but using Mint has something relaxing about it, maybe the combination of the soothing UI and the simplicity of getting all the daily actions done.

 

Fedora is also easy to use and 'compatible' with most software. I think you will be able to install Unity on most platforms easily via Flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.unity.UnityHub 

Fedora has always been at the forefront of making Wayland default, so they have one of the best Wayland experiences. Fedora is a bit more difficult to get your Nvidia drivers to work correctly.

 

If I may list my favorite Unix systems:

Nobara Project, Void Linux, EndeavourOS, KDE neon, NetBSD, Fedora, Devuan, FreeBSD and Clear Linux

 

Not all options are equally easy but they are all 'top systems'.  

 

Godot can be quicker to learn and can be more usable than Unity, meaning that, depending on your experience, you may be able to make a simple game faster with Godot than if you were to do it in Unity. Unity offers more options but you might not need those extra features while creating a simple 2D project or a mobile game. 

 

Currenty Godot is growing very rapidly. Godot has released a beta 4.0 version, many new features are added specifically to the render: https://sarangkoding.com/why-we-use-godot-engine/

 

Unlike other game engines, which when we finish creating a script, it will carry out the compilation process which is quite time-consuming, with Godot, the saved script does not take compilation time, we can even see the error in the script that we have created. Of course this will greatly affect the stage of game development that we make. The community is our main value in choosing Godot as our main engine. We see Godot will develop like Blender which was initially underestimated but until now continues to grow and can compete. The priority of community participation in engine development will certainly better understand what the community itself wants because development is carried out together.

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, MJ104 said:

I wanted to go with manjaro but i just realized first time Linux should be started with ubuntu based distro according to experts.

It doesn't really matter that much, either way there shouldn't be any significant difference in the way the fonts are rendered.

 

As an experiment I'd try a different monitor to see if anything changes, if it does there might be a problem with brightness or color with linux on your specific monitor.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:37 AM, MJ104 said:

Previous month I switched to Zorin OS from windows. Used it for 5 6 days than I started realizing Zorin was causing way too much eye strain for me. So, I started looking for fixes theming, font sizes and types(tried windows fonts) and night light thingy etc. but nothing worked for me after 7th day just 2 hours of computer usage started causing headaches and my eyes start to explode. Then I looked into forum and found out that something called Temporal Dithering could be the reason I tried disabling it, but Nvidia X Server was not working properly could find a way to do it using terminal, a lot of persons on stackoverflow gave suggestions but all of their commands failed, then I reached the point I realized I don't know what I am doing. So, I made the switch to another distro thinking might be issue with Zorin OS but no, elementary OS, Mint and Fedora, MX I had same issue so i switched back to windows 2 days ago when I could not take any more abuse to my eyes. Now I don't have the eye strain just i night sleep and I have been using my laptop for a day and didn't even realize.

 

I just wanted to ask if someone else here had the same issue and found a fix. I really want to move to Linux environment as I love the customizability it offers, but this eye problem is the biggest hurdle. So, it would be nice if someone here has some suggestion or experience with it.

Get blue light glasses

[MJ104]

On 10/21/2022 at 10:54 PM, The Hope said:

Although Manjaro is one of the user-friendly Linux distros, I would indeed say that Ubuntu is even easier.

 

Mint is probably one of the only ones that is even simpler than standard Ubuntu.

Another advantage of Mint is that their UIs have a calming effect in some way. I don't know how else to say it, but using Mint has something relaxing about it, maybe the combination of the soothing UI and the simplicity of getting all the daily actions done.

 

Fedora is also easy to use and 'compatible' with most software. I think you will be able to install Unity on most platforms easily via Flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.unity.UnityHub 

Fedora has always been at the forefront of making Wayland default, so they have one of the best Wayland experiences. Fedora is a bit more difficult to get your Nvidia drivers to work correctly.

 

If I may list my favorite Unix systems:

Nobara Project, Void Linux, EndeavourOS, KDE neon, NetBSD, Fedora, Devuan, FreeBSD and Clear Linux

 

Not all options are equally easy but they are all 'top systems'.  

 

Godot can be quicker to learn and can be more usable than Unity, meaning that, depending on your experience, you may be able to make a simple game faster with Godot than if you were to do it in Unity. Unity offers more options but you might not need those extra features while creating a simple 2D project or a mobile game. 

 

Currenty Godot is growing very rapidly. Godot has released a beta 4.0 version, many new features are added specifically to the render: https://sarangkoding.com/why-we-use-godot-engine/

 

Unlike other game engines, which when we finish creating a script, it will carry out the compilation process which is quite time-consuming, with Godot, the saved script does not take compilation time, we can even see the error in the script that we have created. Of course this will greatly affect the stage of game development that we make. The community is our main value in choosing Godot as our main engine. We see Godot will develop like Blender which was initially underestimated but until now continues to grow and can compete. The priority of community participation in engine development will certainly better understand what the community itself wants because development is carried out together.

Yeah Godot is booming, I am learning it as hobby, will soon be making a shift to it in near future.

 

[MJ104]

On 10/22/2022 at 1:01 AM, Sauron said:

It doesn't really matter that much, either way there shouldn't be any significant difference in the way the fonts are rendered.

 

As an experiment I'd try a different monitor to see if anything changes, if it does there might be a problem with brightness or color with linux on your specific monitor.

yeah, that could be, I will try this. thanks mate.

[AlphaObeisance]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:37 AM, MJ104 said:

Previous month I switched to Zorin OS from windows. Used it for 5 6 days than I started realizing Zorin was causing way too much eye strain for me. So, I started looking for fixes theming, font sizes and types(tried windows fonts) and night light thingy etc. but nothing worked for me after 7th day just 2 hours of computer usage started causing headaches and my eyes start to explode. Then I looked into forum and found out that something called Temporal Dithering could be the reason I tried disabling it, but Nvidia X Server was not working properly could find a way to do it using terminal, a lot of persons on stackoverflow gave suggestions but all of their commands failed, then I reached the point I realized I don't know what I am doing. So, I made the switch to another distro thinking might be issue with Zorin OS but no, elementary OS, Mint and Fedora, MX I had same issue so i switched back to windows 2 days ago when I could not take any more abuse to my eyes. Now I don't have the eye strain just i night sleep and I have been using my laptop for a day and didn't even realize.

 

I just wanted to ask if someone else here had the same issue and found a fix. I really want to move to Linux environment as I love the customizability it offers, but this eye problem is the biggest hurdle. So, it would be nice if someone here has some suggestion or experience with it.

Not sure what Desktop environment you're using; but I would recommend KDE Plasma. I utilize it's night mode sliders to adjust color, and I use Nvidia-Settings to adjust contrast/brightness ect. Eased up the eyestrain drastically. Then again, I utilize dark mode on everything I do. Can't stand looking at a wall of white anymore.

Keep in mind. It doesn't matter what distro you use, it only matters what desktop environment & theme combo you choose. 

KDE Plasma / GNOME / XFCE / Mint ect. Look into the documentation on your current Desktop Environment and see where they have their display settings tucked away.  KDE offers the most customization of all I have found, hands down ; to the extent that many are overwhelmed by it.