Created attachment 178643 [details] wayland SUMMARY On wayland, you see display serial numbers in display settings. That is way too much information when you don't have at least 2 of the same monitors. And even if you do, how the heck would you determine which one is ASUS123/FAK3B88B and which is ASUS123/HU6E4SS? Serial number stickers are on the back and one of my monitor doesn't even have numbers from display settings on its sticker. Better solution would be to use something you can easily check, like output name (HDMI-1, DP-2, etc). Sure, it is still confusing if you have both connected to HDMI or DP. But it is not worse than gibberish serial numbers. And most importantly, these serial numbers are not even needed if you have different displays. And on X11 it's exactly this. Display name is just the name. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Open display settings on wayland 2. Open display settings on x11 OBSERVED RESULT Wayland contains more info but this information is just noise. EXPECTED RESULT No unnecessary gibberish. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: Arch Linux KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.1 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.11.0 Qt Version: 6.8.2 Kernel Version: 6.13.2-arch1-1 (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics
Created attachment 178644 [details] x11 For the comparison, what you see on x11
Interestingly, on X11 one display shows "Model" (BenQ PD2700U) and another one shows both manufacturer and the model (Dell Inc. DELL P2418D) while both fields are used on wayland. Here's DDC: Mfg Id: DEL Model: DELL P2418D Mfg Id: BNQ Model: BenQ PD2700U I'd assume that resolver used for wayland doesn't have mapping for "Mfg Id: BNQ" and just uses Id itself. And resolver on X11 skips unknown manufacturer. Ideally, I'd perfect to just have what I have in "Model" in both cases but in reality it is likely that some manufacturers add the name in Model and some don't. Probably that might depend on many factors and even the same manufacturer might have different naming schemes. There will be no ideal solution. But there should be some middle ground which will make names pretty but still descriptive. I guess telemetry could be used to gather this kind of data.
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/7271
Git commit be91df80ef44386f98a831a5f4dfdfd4a3b6e83e by Oliver Beard. Committed on 06/03/2025 at 15:53. Pushed by olib into branch 'master'. utils/edid: Report monitor name without serial number This fixes the use of a redundant serial number in both the KScreen KCM and the outputlocator effect. Logic already exists in both to insert the serial number when the manufacturer and model numbers are insufficent to disambiguate. M +1 -6 src/utils/edid.cpp https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/commit/be91df80ef44386f98a831a5f4dfdfd4a3b6e83e
Git commit 63bd8c7d8ab5af70c8490c6e34e55ce4b0711bc3 by Oliver Beard. Committed on 06/03/2025 at 16:33. Pushed by olib into branch 'Plasma/6.3'. utils/edid: Report monitor name without serial number This fixes the use of a redundant serial number in both the KScreen KCM and the outputlocator effect. Logic already exists in both to insert the serial number when the manufacturer and model numbers are insufficent to disambiguate. (cherry picked from commit be91df80ef44386f98a831a5f4dfdfd4a3b6e83e) Co-authored-by: Oliver Beard <olib141@outlook.com> M +1 -6 src/utils/edid.cpp https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/commit/63bd8c7d8ab5af70c8490c6e34e55ce4b0711bc3
I think the serial number should still be shown when there are multiple outputs with the same name / connector.
(In reply to John from comment #6) > I think the serial number should still be shown when there are multiple > outputs with the same name / connector. What will you do with it? I honestly can't understand usefulness of this. When you know which physical monitor correspond to its virtual counterpart, you don't need anything, not even a model. Distinct names are needed when you don't know which one of these rectangles in KCM are "one of X monitors that are in front of me". Imagine, you have serial numbers shown. Then what? Would you move monitors around to see stickers on the back? Would you go through every item in monitor's OSD to find its serial? Not every monitor even have serial in OSD. There is no serial in OSD of both monitors that I currently have. Serial number is useful for software because it is fairly unique. But it is the opposite of useful for human interactions. If you have 2 monitors, you can just wiggle mouse around and it'd be quicker than comparing serial numbers. And what will you do with 4, 6 monitors of the same model? More monitors you have, the higher chances that you bought the same model. Inside "brightness and colour" applet it's even worse. You don't even have visual display arrangement to make a decision. And serial in the name won't help you. But this isn't about the applet, so it's not that relevant.
(In reply to John from comment #6) > I think the serial number should still be shown when there are multiple > outputs with the same name / connector. This is the default logic, it just never kicked in (to add the serial when needed for disambiguation) because the serial was already being added to the model name, making it unique. But I've seen displays with the same serial, it's not reliable for this, so I do intend to make disambiguation better in the future by just reporting the index of the displays.