Eye pain from kubuntu 24.04 lts

Support and Help
,
1

Ubuntu Version:
Example: 22.04 LTS, 24.04, 25.10

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
kde

Problem Description:
Describe what you’re trying to do and what happens instead.
If you can easily reproduce the problem, include the steps so others can try.

My current problem is that the desktop screen on Kubuntu 24.04 LTS causes me eye pain. I have tried many Ubuntu distros and other distributions, and I can say this issue is consistent with Ubuntu. Every time I use it for more than 30 minutes, I experience eye pain from the screen. I have attempted updating my NVIDIA drivers to no avail; I initially had version 590, then moved to 580. Trying Wayland or X11 did not resolve the issue. Lastly, Night Light doesn’t help either. i dont get this issue of discomfort from fedora or opensuse but really get it from ubuntu distros

I don’t know what to do to make the operating system comfortable for my eyes. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers

Relevant System Information:
Include any details that might help (e.g., hardware, drivers, or special configurations).

system is 1660 super nvidia driver 580.126.09

i5 10400f intel

2

Are the words too small?

Is the screen to bright?

Explaining what exactly seems to be causing pain will better help us to help you.

5 Likes
3

Hello, Mahdi,

We don’t have a starting point for troubleshooting. We need some details about your context.

The questions from Wyatt are a minimal starting point … about what your are using or feeling.

We also need to know details about your physical hardware. Can you please provide the report from the following command:

sudo   inxi -Fxxx
2 Likes
4

Is the screen resolution set to the native resolution of the display?
How about the scaling settings for the display?
Is the refresh rate of the display too low?

{C9171C58-4000-4B3D-8952-634FFD48B370}
{C9171C58-4000-4B3D-8952-634FFD48B370}818×773 111 KB

As already mentioned: what about brightness and color scheme?

[edit]
Do you use something like fractional scaling? This may have a similar effect as not using native resolution.

2 Likes
5

Could it be that the issue is your reaction to the refresh rate?

Does your monitor offer different rates for the same resolution?

What refresh rates and resolution does you computer have set with those other OSs that don’t give you any issues?

6

mahdi@mahdi-ms7c82:~$ sudo inxi -Fxxx
System:
Host: mahdi-ms7c82 Kernel: 6.14.0-37-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0 clocksource: tsc
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.12 tk: Qt v: N/A wm: kwin_wayland dm: SDDM
Distro: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat)
Machine:
Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: MAG B460M MORTAR WIFI (MS-7C82) v: 1.0
serial: K616272420 uuid: 2bf26854-4b48-4a17-a1ba-2cf05d55c67a
UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1.60 date: 06/07/2022
CPU:
Info: 6-core model: Intel Core i5-10400 bits: 64 type: MT MCP smt: enabled
arch: Comet Lake rev: 3 cache: L1: 384 KiB L2: 1.5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/4300 volts: 0.8 V ext-clock: 100 MHz
cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 9: 800
10: 800 11: 800 12: 800 bogomips: 69597
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA TU116 [GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER] vendor: Gigabyte
driver: nvidia v: 580.126.09 arch: Turing pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 16
ports: active: DP-1 empty: DP-2,DP-3,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 01:00.0
chip-ID: 10de:21c4 class-ID: 0300
Display: server: X.Org v: 23.2.6 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6
compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: nvidia
gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch display-ID: :1 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x286mm (20.00x11.26")
s-diag: 583mm (22.95")
Monitor-1: DP-1 model: Lenovo LEN LT2323pwA serial: V147200 res: 1920x1080
hz: 60 dpi: 96 size: 510x290mm (20.08x11.42") diag: 585mm (23") modes:
max: 1920x1080 min: 640x480
API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia nouveau drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0
drv: nvidia device: 1 drv: nouveau device: 2 drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia
surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11: drv: nvidia inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 580.126.09
glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660
SUPER/PCIe/SSE2
API: Vulkan v: 1.3.275 layers: 5 surfaces: xcb,xlib device: 0
type: discrete-gpu driver: N/A device-ID: 10de:21c4 device: 1 type: cpu
driver: N/A device-ID: 10005:0000
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Comet Lake PCH-V cAVS vendor: Micro-Star MSI
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a3f0
class-ID: 0403
Device-2: NVIDIA TU116 High Definition Audio vendor: Gigabyte
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:1aeb class-ID: 0403
API: ALSA v: k6.14.0-37-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: n/a (root, process) with:
1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber status: active
Network:
Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s
lanes: 1 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2723 class-ID: 0280
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: 14:f6:d8:b6:87:26
Device-2: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169
v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
chip-ID: 10ec:8125 class-ID: 0200
IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: 2c:f0:5d:55:c6:7a
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0
speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-8:6 chip-ID: 8087:0029 class-ID: e001
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: 14:F6:D8:B6:87:2A
bt-v: 5.2 lmp-v: 11 sub-v: 2184 hci-v: 11 rev: 2184 class-ID: 7c0104
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 1.36 TiB used: 10.63 GiB (0.8%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0A-00SM50
size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s tech: SSD serial: 20439U475406 fw-rev: 00WD
scheme: GPT
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST500LX025-1U717D size: 465.76 GiB
speed: 6.0 Gb/s tech: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: WDENSZST fw-rev: SDM1
scheme: GPT
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 929.01 GiB used: 10.61 GiB (1.1%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda2
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 12.8 MiB (2.5%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/sda1
ID-3: /home size: 929.01 GiB used: 10.61 GiB (1.1%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 512 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
file: /swap/swapfile
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 19.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 24 GiB available: 23.41 GiB used: 1.95 GiB (8.3%)
Processes: 331 Power: uptime: 1m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep
wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform Init: systemd v: 255 target: graphical (5)
default: graphical
Packages: 2282 pm: dpkg pkgs: 2273 pm: snap pkgs: 9 Compilers: gcc: 13.3.0
Shell: Sudo (sudo) v: 1.9.15p5 default: Bash v: 5.2.21 running-in: konsole
inxi: 3.3.34

7

i have same refresh rate and use 1920x1080p consistently with 60hz. i am suspecting that my screen Nvidia driver may not be communicating well with my ubuntu desktop or some pixelation hidden flickers causing me eye pain overtime. a video of this clearly showing some odd behavior when i use it on the start menu.

screenshotmenupixelation
screenshotmenupixelation1021×793 65.2 KB

1 Like
8

not really i suspect flickering i have done 2200x in night colour mode but it hasn’t really fixed the discomfort.

9

Have you tried using gammastep or ayatana-indicator-display?

2 Likes
10

I have the same problem with 22.04 with Nvidia RTX2080Ti (latest recommended drivers) and Dell UltraSharp U2415 on 60hz.

So far I tried Night Color, another font and made sure I’m running the right ICC-profile (sRGB). It also seems like my monitor is quite bright on Kubuntu compared to being in windows, so I lowered brightness from 60 to 50. I need a couple of days away from my screen so I haven’t really tested if lowering the brightness did anything. Scale is 100% and I turned of Blur and made sure that AA is on. I also tried different themes.

Any suggestions on this is highly appreciated, thanks.

11

@pka1973 The native resolution of your display seems to be 1920 px x 1200 px. What resolution are you using?

12

@g-schick I’m running it at1920X1200 /60 hz. Apparently everything looks fine, but something is just killing my eyes after a couple of hours. Going into windows is instant relief, so I guess it’s something fixable within drivers or such.

13

Did you try using graphics settings (font, font size, background, brightness, dark/light scheme, …) from windows in Kubuntu? Or are those already (nearly) identical?

I just read something about reduced refresh rate while in low power modes. But I do not know if this applies nor how to check this out …

1 Like
14

Yes. I tried those. I got the Inter font, size 10.5, which should be fairly good and somewhat similar to Windows. I’m using X11, btw.

I’m a cg-artist so I need a neutral screen so I can rely on the colours and contrast. So turning it all yellow with Night Color doesn’t seem to be the option.

15

I don’t know if what you are experiencing may have originated with the integration of Wayland.

Would it be too much for you to try a Live ISO of, for example, UbuntuMATE at release 24.04, to see if a non-Wayland build still has the same issue?

1 Like