> Using either windows or linux, anything over about 105 dpi is too small and I need to get closer to the monitor than what is acceptable from an ergonomics stand point.
I see this as a big failure of "modern" graphic systems. Having a 105 ppi should just mean more refined graphics, not smaller size of rendered objects.
The way a GUI appears on the screen should be a function of the screen size and the viewer distance, not a function of the screen ppi! We must get rid of all the layers of hacks that we have accumulated over the years (the reference 72 ppi, for example).
>I see this as a big failure of "modern" graphic systems.
Absolutely. This is one of the main reasons we were stuck with such incredibly shitty low res displays for so long. Up until windows vista, high DPI monitors were simply unusable in windows. Even now they have problems.
We still have a similar problem forcing us into having tiny screens. Windows and all the desktop environments that copied it are absolutely worthless at their primary function: managing windows. So people prefer two small monitors over one large monitor simply because the two small monitors allow an easy "make this take up half my screen space". Something that is of course trivially easy to implement, but most "modern" windowing systems don't care about at all.
For what it's worth, in GNOME 3 and Unity (Ubuntu) moving a window to the left or right border will make that window half of the screen. Same with top and bottom border. Moving a window to one of the corners resizes it to a quarter of the screen.
Windows 8.1 has keyboard shortcuts to make a window take half the screen, the full screen, etc. Hold down the Windows key and try the various arrow keys. You may be pleasantly surprised.
There are all sorts of other useful shortcuts that use the Windows key as a modifier, for example Windows+E to open a File Explorer window. Basically, try Windows+(every key) to see what it does.
I'm aware, but until the majority of people are using a system where basic window management exists, vendors have little incentive to sell double wide monitors because so few people would be willing to use them. So those of us who can make good use of them have to wait forever, just like we did for reasonable DPI LCDs.
Also, even in the newest windows it is still crippled. Applications can prevent themselves from being resized like that, and often things like games that you would want to run in borderless window mode can not be moved around using windows shortcut keys.
I see this as a big failure of "modern" graphic systems. Having a 105 ppi should just mean more refined graphics, not smaller size of rendered objects.
The way a GUI appears on the screen should be a function of the screen size and the viewer distance, not a function of the screen ppi! We must get rid of all the layers of hacks that we have accumulated over the years (the reference 72 ppi, for example).