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I am running Ubuntu 19.10 on an old laptop with max resolution of 1366x768.

Is there a way to scale down gnome below 100%? I have already set text scaling to .90 and reduced the dock icon size to 36.

Is this feature available in other window managers?

praseo
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4 Answers4

6

You can try with xrandr --output HDMI --scale 1.2x1.2 where HDMI is your output name (you can find it with xrandr --listmonitors) and 1.2 is the scaling factor you want.

To make the display appear smaller (i.e., fit more content on the screen), the scale factor must be greater than 1.0, not less. Scaling below 1.0 can cause artifacts and is generally not recommended.

If you are using multiple displays, you also need to correctly set the offset position for each one. For example, if your left monitor has a width of 1920 pixels and is scaled by 1.2, the virtual width becomes 1920 × 1.2 = 2304 pixels. You then set the next monitor's position with xrandr --output <output> --scale 1.0x1.0 --auto --pos 2304x0 and so on for additional monitors.

karel
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Gabriel Aznarez
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2

I'm running Debian 11. I tested this in RockyLinux - which is a CentOS splinter - and it worked.

At a terminal prompt enter:

xrandr --listmonitors

The output will look something like this:

Monitors: 1
 0: +*LVDS-1 3620/309x2036/174+0+0  LVDS-1

In the output the end bit is your video output. In my case it's "LVDS-1"

In a terminal enter:

sudo nano /etc/xdg/autostart/.desktop

Enter the below bit of info changing the LVDS-1 to what ever the output was from your system.

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=xrandr
Exec=xrandr --output LVDS-1 --scale 2.65x2.65
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;

Reboot your system and you should be set.

Greenonline
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John D
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2

I found this while going through the link of the bug issue provided by James Lewis above.

Apparently it was partially implemented in GNOME 42 (Ubuntu 22.04): https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/commit/bfb7151c

  1. Enable fractional scaling in Settings and set it to 100%.
  2. Edit ~/.config/monitors.xml and change the scale value to 0.5
  3. Log in again.

This has worked for me on Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, GNOME 42.9.

My primary display is set at 100% and secondary monitor at 80% now.

Thank you Lewis!

zenoweed
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0

There is a bug for this on the Gnome launchpad site, I hope a few more people will go over there and raise it's profile:-

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mutter/+bug/1724037

James Lewis
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