Scaling in archlabs/linux

#1

I’ve tried a few different desktop environments, and only successfully had ui scaling on unity, deepin, enlightenment (some offending apps), and mate (although not much) for my 1920x1080 laptop. I am currently trying the openbox environment in the default setup for archlabs and was wondering how much scaling can be done here?

System:    Host: archlabs Kernel: 4.20.8-arch1-1-ARCH x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Openbox 3.6.1 Distro: ArchLabs Linux 
Machine:   Type: Virtualbox System: innotek product: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: <root required> 
           Mobo: Oracle model: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: <root required> BIOS: innotek v: VirtualBox date: 12/01/2006 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 35.0 Wh condition: 50.0/50.0 Wh (100%) 
CPU:       Single Core: Intel Pentium 4415U type: MCP speed: 2304 MHz 
Graphics:  Device-1: InnoTek Systemberatung VirtualBox Graphics Adapter driver: vboxvideo v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x950~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.3 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000 
           Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 8.00 GiB used: 5.43 GiB (67.9%) 
Info:      Processes: 108 Uptime: 1h 05m Memory: 985.0 MiB used: 228.4 MiB (23.2%) Shell: zsh inxi: 3.0.30

Especially since it uses xfwm in the backgroud maybe there’s something I can do?
Btw, happy a c compiler is included :slight_smile:

#2

I’m not sure why you need to scale on a 1080p screen?

#3

I’m not sure either, but the fonts and ui by default are for small, windows scales my laptop by default as well.

#4

The xrandr command can scale, for example:

xrandr --output LVDS1 --scale 1.25x1.25

Find your active output with the plain xrandr command then add the desired value to the openbox autostart command list.

A better approach may be to enforce the correct DPI value:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#Display_size_and_DPI

#5

Thank you! Although I’ve been told that dpi is not the actually solution, but its what the main desktops seem to use.

#6

You can add this to ~/.Xresources (it should be loaded at startup) and change the value to something that works for you.

Xft.dpi: 92

or from a shell

echo 'Xft.dpi: 92' | xrdb

Downside is this only works for Xft.

If you’re using xinit then you can do something like

startx -- -dpi 92

These are what I use currently to fix my scaling issues