Advice for sensible scaling of the high DPI display?

[cboettig]

I realize this issue isn't completely addressed yet in Unity 7 / current ubuntu (15.04) but I'm curious what steps folks are using to make the display manageable with a bit less squinting. I've used System Settings -> Display -> Scale for menu and title bars = 1.5, and rely on a lot of ctrl+shift++ in the terminal and browser (chrome, firefox).

[anaran]

In Firefox I use about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx;2

[antonmry]

I am using this (Fedora21):

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor': <2>}"

In Firefox, visit about:config, and search for "layout.css.devPixelsPerPx" and change the value from -1.0 (system default) to 2.

In Chrome, visit the Settings page at chrome://settings/, click "Show advanced settings..." and scroll down to "Web content", then set the "Page zoom" to 200%.

BTW, I have problems with Eclipse & Intellij Idea... which it's a big fail in a Developer editor laptop :-)

[eparejatobes]

A conf that works reasonably well with gnome-shell and Ubuntu 15.04 is (all what follows through Gnome Tweak Tool)

• leave Window Scaling to 1
• set all fonts to 10 and the Scaling Factor to 1.60

In Chrome, font size medium and default zoom 150%

Edited All this for the 1080p version

[domak]

There are usefull infos here: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3525/t/19631683

For intellij, I add -Dhidpi=true in idea64.vmoptions

[igorpetrov]

I'm just set resolution to 1360x768 for my FHD display in Unity, all things looks at its normal size.

[mateuszsip]

I wasn't satisfied with Ubuntu, so I installed Antergos with Gnome Shell. Everything works fine, scaling was set up automatically, even for Chrome.

You only have to build package for wi-fi (broadcom). And battery life seems to be better than on ubuntu 15.04 (with tlp).

[advancingu]

Is there any tool to set a different DPI scaling factor for each monitor?

[soren121]

@advancingu I don't think Xorg has support for multi-monitor HiDPI scaling (with different scaling factors.) Wayland does, though.

[bezerker]

I found that xrandr scaling can handle my needs. I'm on the QHD model and find that a DPI of 240 or so is the actual "recommended" dpi for our model. (233 really)

[antonmry]

it seems we'll have support for multi-monitor HiDPI scaling in Fedora. Source: http://fedoramagazine.org/update-wayland-support-fedora-23/

[thenitai]

Scaling doesn't really work for me in Ubuntu 15.04. I mean, it works but on every reboot I have to get my laptop screen and my external monitor in sync.

I've now switched to Cinnamon and it works perfectly. Cinnamon is also much more gentle on resources.

However, I actually wish to use i3wm. Problem is that everything is extremely small (fonts, bar, etc.). Anyone got an idea how to scale things up there?

Thanks.

[JPenuchot]

Using i3wm here, my i3 config is available here if you ever install it on your computer (Fixes DPI scaling pretty much everywhere, some tweaks might be required for Gnome apps)