How to calibrate display in Ubuntu 20.10

Software
1

Ubuntu 20.10 deprecated python 2, and without that DisplayCAL does not run. Python2 can still be installed of course, but Ubuntu does not provide packages for python-wxgtk any longer, and wxpython itself does not provide easy-to-install wheels for versions older than 4.0, without which DisplayCAL can’t run.

Is there another way of calibrating a screen without DisplayCAL? Can I run DisplayCAL on, say, Windows, and use the resulting color profile on Linux?

2

You can use a USB bootable distro (even an older distrp version that has py2), boot into it, run display cal, save the ICC profile, then use that profile in your current installation.

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3

Good idea! Thank you.

4

Hi Bastian,
I for do not recompile displayCal every time something changes I learned to calibrate with ArgyllCMS :+1:
CLI commands will not never die :smiley:

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5

NO! Display drivers are not the same.
In theory, you have to recalibrate when display driver changes in Linux too

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6

I didn’t know you could calibrate with Argyll alone! Thank you for the hint!

I’ll look into that. (And I would be grateful for guidance unless it’s obvious anyway)

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displayCAL uses ArgyllCMS, It’s a GUI for ArgyllCMS http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/Scenarios.html

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8

It is possible to run Displaycal form source on Ubuntu 20.04, I think Python version does not matter als long as it’s higher than 2.

9

The dispcal CLI worked beautifully. Actually easier to use than the DisplayCAL GUI, once you know what to do.

For future reference, this will calibrate screen X:

dispcal -d X -v -o profile-filename

(Run dispcal without arguments to get a list of available X)

Then adjust white point (2) using your screen’s controls, adjust brightness (4), then check all (5) and calibrate (7). Takes half an hour, produces a color profile icc file you can load in Gnome’s color settings.

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10

thanks a lot! Its still working to you good?

I am getting strange colors after calibrating… only warning I get is

“dispcal: Warning - new_dispwin: Expected VideoLUT depth 8 doesn’t match actual 10”

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Displaycal is now available as a flatpak, which should make it easier to install on Ubuntu 20.10 and other distros which have depreciated Python 2.7.

12

wow thanks!!! thats great news :wink:

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I think that just means that you have a 10-bit-screen and don’t use 10 bit.

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Yes I understood that but I have never set the depth of color… any insight on how can I change that? thanks.

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There is no point in setting 10 bit. Only Krita and Photoshop support it.

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thanks a lot for the information :smiley: