My laptop has been having problems not charging and the top row of the keyboard stopped working. In my pursuit of a replacement I realized how ridiculously cheap Intel iMacs have become.

And then I realized that you can gut them and convert them into an insanely good computer monitor after the internals die.

I was looking for a dead one but somehow managed to get my hands on a working 5k 2017 iMac for $150. God the display is glorious.

For the time being Im just going to use the existing internals since they’re still functioning.

I installed Fedora on an external drive and everything seems to be functional. I managed to get fractional scaling functioning. However the output only goes up to 4k. And while thats still really nice, the extra resolution does make an obvious difference when sitting ~1 foot away.

Has anyone been able to get 5k working?

    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
      5·
      3 months ago

      In laptops the internal screen is usually attached over embedded Displayport (eDP) could be the same here. “native” doesn’t really say much.

    • the_wise_wolf@feddit.org
      3·
      3 months ago

      Not sure what these internal connections are, but Displayport is both a plug and a protocol. You can use the protocol over thunderbolt and maybe other connections as well.

      • helenslunch@feddit.nlOP
        2·
        3 months ago

        Not sure what these internal connections are

        Literally every connection is internal, outside of the power cable.

        • Markaos@lemmy.one
          3·
          3 months ago

          Yes, but these internal connections can be done in a variety of ways - for example the most common way to connect laptop displays (which I would definitely classify as internal) is using embedded DisplayPort.