Why does KDE miss some basic tools like Display adjustments and audio adjustments

Community
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Having just returned to Linux and always having been a fan of KDE, I am surprised that we are missing basic tools.

Display: No colour depths tool, no Gamma tool, no Contrast tool. My Display is a lot better in Windows and has the ability to fine tune the Display settings as above.

Audio: I have to use Easy Effects to get the sound reasonably acceptable on this new Laptop. All I really want is a simple 7 Band (or more) equalizer. Easy Effects is way over the top and complicated for some simple adjustment requirements.

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I might be wrong but I believe what you’re seeking comes in the form of the kgamma system settings module (though I don’t know of its Wayland status, probably a question to @Zamundaaa ) and kmix.

Edit: looks like I was wrong about kmix, I was misremembering.

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For sound: KDE Control Centre → Inputs and Outputs → Sound

For the display: KDE Control Centre → Display and Screens → Display Settings.

KDE is highly customisable, but sometimes the options are well hidden.

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Neither sound nor display will let you adjust tone frequency or colour or contrast or gammar…etc. Display will let you set a couple of pre-determined profiles, frequency and resolution..that’s it.

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These configuration options are actually not very basic at all!

For the display stuff, we do plan to re-add them on Wayland (they’re already there on X11), hopefully for the Plasma 6.8 release.

For the audio stuff, the fact that EasyEffects lets you do it is a substantial damper on the need for such a thing built into Plasma. As you can see, EasyEffects is not a basic and simple app; audio stuff is hugely complex! If we added a system-wide equalizer UI that’s as simple as we could bear to make it, it wouldn’t be long before someone asked for more levels on the EQ, or presets, or a built-in echo cancellation feature, or who knows what! The scope is unbounded, as EasyEffects shows. Being able to say, “if you need any of this fancy stuff, use EasyEffects” substantially simplifies the developer story, even if it results in a less integrated UX.

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Thank you for your well thought out response.

Yes, display. I came back to Linux after 15 years of absence and was surprised that so many display tuning functions were missing as I know I had them then under X11. Unfortunate I Have a new expensive Laptop that needs adjustment.

Audio: Yes, you will never win. Give one option and straight away, more is wanted. I still think that a basic equalizer would satisfy the majority of users.

I am surprised that there isn’t a simple equalizer available via third party app. At least I haven’t found one yet.

I am looking forward to Plasma 6.8.

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You’re welcome.

There’s another angle here that often isn’t thought about as much: the more knobs you give people to fix their own problems, the less likely the problems are to be reported upstream and fixed properly for everybody.

This is a balancing act; sometimes upstream is overwhelmed or doesn’t care (this is particularly true of hardware vendors that didn’t sell the device with Linux on it), and in these cases, providing knobs for people to work around problems can be appropriate. But it will still result in fewer bug reports and a worse UX for everyone else.

So, trade-offs. As a platform steward, this is the kind of thing KDE has to think about.

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Just did a quick check:

  1. Microsoft has removed equalizer from Windows 11. My laptop pre-installed “DTS Audio” which provides a simple 5-band equalizer along with some presets.
  2. Windows 11 has gamma control but no contrast control. The “AMD Raedon” software has contrast control and a few others.

So apparently Microsoft doesn’t agree that these are “basic”. Or they do, but they assume vendor software will provide them.

Anyway, I think Easy Effects can use a simpler “presets” UI as the default, instead of us building a watered-down version of it.

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I have a fully updated Windows 11 on a Lenovo Legion 17 inch Laptop.

Under: System/Display/Colour Management you find apart from setting up your own profile, also a setting: “Colour calibration” there is the ability to adjust colour, brightness and “contrast”.

Audio: You are correct. I have a vendor specific mixer that gives me more adjustment ability, but not generic in Windows.

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By the way..just checked. I can go into the Windows app store and download a free 9 band equalizer called: FxSound.

So the option is right there.

I have not found a KDE optional equalizer. It doesn’t have to be installed as default, but an optional download would be great.

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Might be another vendor-specific thing, as Windows asks me to tune non-existent “contrast/brightness buttons on my monitor” there.

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kinda annoyed distros are trying to ax x11 before such things are done tho.

maybe wayland should be more properly developed before doing that. not sure about where KDE neon stands with X11 support tho

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I don’t see a 7 band equalizer which was one of the posters requests..am I missing it?

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would helvum/pipewire/easyeffects offer what’s needed for audio, at least? Not native but perhaps a usable solution

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EasyEffects does, but its a over the top complicated audio adjustment tool that is more suitable for sound engineers then the everyday person. Interestingly VLC Video player has the same level of ability as does EasyEffects…but you can ignore them as it also has a straight forward 10 band Equalizer in there, so you can ignore all the other audio functions if you wish to do so.

The problem is that VLC audio calibration is only for the VLC application and not system wide.