did you get a chance to meet him when he came by LGM in London
Likely, but I met too many people to remember them all unfortunately.
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OK, thanks for all the answers. Some reading ahead 
I have used the X-Rite i1 first version with DisplayCAL and also the ColorHug on several monitors and laptop screens for a few years. The i1 had a cheaper version and a more expensive one that only differed in the software supplied (for Mac and Windows), but dispcalGUI and Argyll CMS would supply the tools of the Pro version of the software with the lower priced i1 package.
Both tools worked well and really improved some monitors and all laptop screens. I’ve used an $1800 Eizo and now an ASUS ProArt 279 for the last several years. Those haven’t needed as much profile adjustment, and the ASUS has a hardware switch for profile toggles that includes sRGB and Adobe RGB with very tiny Delta E (<2). So I haven’t felt the need to calibrate as much. (The hardware toggle is very handy when you’re editing RAW in Adobe RGB and want to check output in sRGB.)
I can’t find it now, but I believe I saw a reference stating that Richard Hughes is/was (?) involved in writing display drivers or something involving color management for Red Hat, i.e. he knows what he’s doing.
Not really adding nothing new, but just my 2 cents. I’ve been using my Pantone Huey with either displayCal or the Gnome Color Management with no issues for years.
Has anyone used ColorVision Spyder2PRO on Linux? Will it work ? Is it a good device for a non-pro photographer? I am asking because I saw it for 75 maple flavoured dollars in a local store.
I spend those too…what store? (in case I ever get enough free time to get color managed)
Not sure. I just saw it on calgary.kijiji.ca
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I have Spyder 4 Pro and I am Linux user (distros: Kubuntu 14.04 and now 16.04). DisplayCAL is the software of my choice. Everything has worked smoothly, but the calibration process is very slow. Depending from settings, it has taken 1,5-3 hours to complete. It seems to be an ok device for ordinary photographers.
Spyder 2 Pro is quite old and I have no idea how good it is and how well it will work on Linux.
Have you considered open source Color Hug? http://www.hughski.com/
DisplayCal has a knob for setting the speed (# of patches, time per patch). You can set it to 15 minutes, you can set it to several hours.
AFAIK Spyder Pro doesn’t work with LED TFT Monitors. I wouldn’t buy such an old device.
Edit: Besides that, the Spyder 2 was released 12 years ago. I wouldn’t bet money, that this device is working accurate.
I wish there was a “middle ground” option for those that don’t want to spend the money on a hardware colorimeter. If I could use a reference color card to visually match colors in some program that would then make an icc profile for me, that would be ideal. I’d gladly pay up to like $50 for the calibrated color card, and I could certainly live with the results being more subjective to than with a colorimeter, since they’d be much better than nothing (which is how I currently roll). My understanding is that there was an old program called “Monica” that let you do something like this, but it’s been long defunct abandonware.
You can buy a colorimeter for 50$ on eBay, new, e.g. Pantone Huey, or bid for a used one for 10$. The “Pro” in the “Pantone Huey Pro” model is identical to the non-pro in hardware, and only differs in software, which we don’t care about as we’re using DisplayCal.
@Morgan_Hardwood Wow, I didn’t know they went for that cheap! I looked them up on eBay, and there are a lot fir very cheap! It pays to know the right thing to search for, I suppose… Guess I know what my next photography purchase is!
Well, I just bought a used Pantone Huey off of the FleaBay for the grand sum of $15, including shipping. Now to discover how to use DisplayCal!
DisplayCal is pretty automatic.
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Good to know! I’m hoping all this will help me to be less nervous next time I send stuff off to be printed…
with a caveat, at least in my experience. I have a ColorHug2 (bought because it’s both affordable and because I wanted to support free/open solutions), and I had to struggle quite a bit with DisplayCal to get good results. The defaults were producing quite bad output to my eyes.
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What did you struggle with?
Wait half an hour after turning your screen on, let it warm up. Run the latest DisplayCal. Select “Office & Web”, in the Calibration tab set whitepoint to a color temperature of 6500K and set a custom white level of 120cd/m² (if your monitor can go that bright - you can measure to find out).
If you select the “Photo” preset it will set the whitepoint to 5000K which will make your screen look too warm under normal conditions unless you’re working with a D50 light booth.
Leave everything else at default.
You can optionally enable perceptual mapping by clicking on the gear icon next to “Profile type” in the “Profiling” tab, but WARNING! Some programs, for example all versions of Geeqie except for git, will use the perceptual intent if the profile supports it without giving you an option to not do that, and since perceptual intent shifts all colors your images may look whack. My advice is to keep perceptual mapping disabled until you both need it and know that your programs work correctly.
Calibrate and profile. If things look good, then in the Profiling tab you can increase the patch count of the test chart from 175 to something like 1148. The time it takes will change from 7 minutes to 41 minutes and you will end up with a good quality profile.
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