Desktop in Ubuntu 18.04 “too big”











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I just installed Ubuntu 18.04 in my new lenovo t480s and for some reasons, everything (from the dock up to the frames of the windows) are too big.



Just to be clear, they are not abnormal but they are significantly big. I tried Ubuntu 18.04 in a different laptop, and I didn't have these issues.



I have been looking online but so far, I haven't found any answer.



UPDATE:



I found, after some digging that apparently I am not the only one with these issues:
"The specs I got were:




  • WQHD panel

  • 16GB RAM (kinda regret not going for the full 24)

  • i5-8350U (actually cost more than the i7 but I thought might run a bit cooler)

  • 512GB SSD

  • NFC

  • WWAN


Installing Ubuntu 18.04 (alongside Win 10) went fine. Now for the issues:

Perhaps naïvely, I thought that scaling on a WQHD screen would not be an issue by now. I went for the high resolution screen since I love to have lots of space (and also prefer matte.) However, by default, Ubuntu 18.04 (with Xorg) does not support fractional scaling, so you're stuck with 100% (way too small, even for me) or 200% (too big, no screen space.) The non-default Wayland display server does support fractional scaling, and I find 150% to be a pretty perfect balance of size and space. The main drawbacks, aside from potential Wayland app-incompatibilities (which I haven't run into yet) is the ugly, blurry fonts on Gnome Shell, which still seems to have some fractional scaling issues. Fonts elsewhere look fine though, so I think I can live with this."



Because I have no experience, can somebody tell me what this Wayland app is?










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    up vote
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    I just installed Ubuntu 18.04 in my new lenovo t480s and for some reasons, everything (from the dock up to the frames of the windows) are too big.



    Just to be clear, they are not abnormal but they are significantly big. I tried Ubuntu 18.04 in a different laptop, and I didn't have these issues.



    I have been looking online but so far, I haven't found any answer.



    UPDATE:



    I found, after some digging that apparently I am not the only one with these issues:
    "The specs I got were:




    • WQHD panel

    • 16GB RAM (kinda regret not going for the full 24)

    • i5-8350U (actually cost more than the i7 but I thought might run a bit cooler)

    • 512GB SSD

    • NFC

    • WWAN


    Installing Ubuntu 18.04 (alongside Win 10) went fine. Now for the issues:

    Perhaps naïvely, I thought that scaling on a WQHD screen would not be an issue by now. I went for the high resolution screen since I love to have lots of space (and also prefer matte.) However, by default, Ubuntu 18.04 (with Xorg) does not support fractional scaling, so you're stuck with 100% (way too small, even for me) or 200% (too big, no screen space.) The non-default Wayland display server does support fractional scaling, and I find 150% to be a pretty perfect balance of size and space. The main drawbacks, aside from potential Wayland app-incompatibilities (which I haven't run into yet) is the ugly, blurry fonts on Gnome Shell, which still seems to have some fractional scaling issues. Fonts elsewhere look fine though, so I think I can live with this."



    Because I have no experience, can somebody tell me what this Wayland app is?










    share|improve this question


























      up vote
      0
      down vote

      favorite









      up vote
      0
      down vote

      favorite











      I just installed Ubuntu 18.04 in my new lenovo t480s and for some reasons, everything (from the dock up to the frames of the windows) are too big.



      Just to be clear, they are not abnormal but they are significantly big. I tried Ubuntu 18.04 in a different laptop, and I didn't have these issues.



      I have been looking online but so far, I haven't found any answer.



      UPDATE:



      I found, after some digging that apparently I am not the only one with these issues:
      "The specs I got were:




      • WQHD panel

      • 16GB RAM (kinda regret not going for the full 24)

      • i5-8350U (actually cost more than the i7 but I thought might run a bit cooler)

      • 512GB SSD

      • NFC

      • WWAN


      Installing Ubuntu 18.04 (alongside Win 10) went fine. Now for the issues:

      Perhaps naïvely, I thought that scaling on a WQHD screen would not be an issue by now. I went for the high resolution screen since I love to have lots of space (and also prefer matte.) However, by default, Ubuntu 18.04 (with Xorg) does not support fractional scaling, so you're stuck with 100% (way too small, even for me) or 200% (too big, no screen space.) The non-default Wayland display server does support fractional scaling, and I find 150% to be a pretty perfect balance of size and space. The main drawbacks, aside from potential Wayland app-incompatibilities (which I haven't run into yet) is the ugly, blurry fonts on Gnome Shell, which still seems to have some fractional scaling issues. Fonts elsewhere look fine though, so I think I can live with this."



      Because I have no experience, can somebody tell me what this Wayland app is?










      share|improve this question















      I just installed Ubuntu 18.04 in my new lenovo t480s and for some reasons, everything (from the dock up to the frames of the windows) are too big.



      Just to be clear, they are not abnormal but they are significantly big. I tried Ubuntu 18.04 in a different laptop, and I didn't have these issues.



      I have been looking online but so far, I haven't found any answer.



      UPDATE:



      I found, after some digging that apparently I am not the only one with these issues:
      "The specs I got were:




      • WQHD panel

      • 16GB RAM (kinda regret not going for the full 24)

      • i5-8350U (actually cost more than the i7 but I thought might run a bit cooler)

      • 512GB SSD

      • NFC

      • WWAN


      Installing Ubuntu 18.04 (alongside Win 10) went fine. Now for the issues:

      Perhaps naïvely, I thought that scaling on a WQHD screen would not be an issue by now. I went for the high resolution screen since I love to have lots of space (and also prefer matte.) However, by default, Ubuntu 18.04 (with Xorg) does not support fractional scaling, so you're stuck with 100% (way too small, even for me) or 200% (too big, no screen space.) The non-default Wayland display server does support fractional scaling, and I find 150% to be a pretty perfect balance of size and space. The main drawbacks, aside from potential Wayland app-incompatibilities (which I haven't run into yet) is the ugly, blurry fonts on Gnome Shell, which still seems to have some fractional scaling issues. Fonts elsewhere look fine though, so I think I can live with this."



      Because I have no experience, can somebody tell me what this Wayland app is?







      18.04 .desktop






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      edited Nov 28 at 12:52









      RoVo

      6,6421539




      6,6421539










      asked Nov 27 at 21:24









      hal

      62




      62






















          1 Answer
          1






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          0
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          It's possible your scaling is set too large or your resolution is too low.
          You can change these by navigating to the settings menu > Devices > Screen Display



          Settings menu



          The T480 I think, has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 so it should be set to that. If it isn't, then you may need to install additional graphics drivers. This resolution can considered a high DPI display, so the standard scaling of 100% might appear too small (and 200% may be too big).



          The normal settings menu will only let you choose between 100% and 200%, however if install the Gnome Tweaks tool from the Ubuntu Software application, within it navigate to Fonts > Scaling Factor, then you can adjust that setting too, which might help.
          enter image description here






          share|improve this answer





















          • Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
            – hal
            Nov 27 at 22:23










          • try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
            – Joshua Besneatte
            Nov 27 at 22:38










          • Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 11:00










          • I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
            – Hugo
            Nov 28 at 17:47










          • Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 20:58











          Your Answer








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          1 Answer
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          active

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          1 Answer
          1






          active

          oldest

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          active

          oldest

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          active

          oldest

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          up vote
          0
          down vote













          It's possible your scaling is set too large or your resolution is too low.
          You can change these by navigating to the settings menu > Devices > Screen Display



          Settings menu



          The T480 I think, has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 so it should be set to that. If it isn't, then you may need to install additional graphics drivers. This resolution can considered a high DPI display, so the standard scaling of 100% might appear too small (and 200% may be too big).



          The normal settings menu will only let you choose between 100% and 200%, however if install the Gnome Tweaks tool from the Ubuntu Software application, within it navigate to Fonts > Scaling Factor, then you can adjust that setting too, which might help.
          enter image description here






          share|improve this answer





















          • Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
            – hal
            Nov 27 at 22:23










          • try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
            – Joshua Besneatte
            Nov 27 at 22:38










          • Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 11:00










          • I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
            – Hugo
            Nov 28 at 17:47










          • Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 20:58















          up vote
          0
          down vote













          It's possible your scaling is set too large or your resolution is too low.
          You can change these by navigating to the settings menu > Devices > Screen Display



          Settings menu



          The T480 I think, has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 so it should be set to that. If it isn't, then you may need to install additional graphics drivers. This resolution can considered a high DPI display, so the standard scaling of 100% might appear too small (and 200% may be too big).



          The normal settings menu will only let you choose between 100% and 200%, however if install the Gnome Tweaks tool from the Ubuntu Software application, within it navigate to Fonts > Scaling Factor, then you can adjust that setting too, which might help.
          enter image description here






          share|improve this answer





















          • Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
            – hal
            Nov 27 at 22:23










          • try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
            – Joshua Besneatte
            Nov 27 at 22:38










          • Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 11:00










          • I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
            – Hugo
            Nov 28 at 17:47










          • Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 20:58













          up vote
          0
          down vote










          up vote
          0
          down vote









          It's possible your scaling is set too large or your resolution is too low.
          You can change these by navigating to the settings menu > Devices > Screen Display



          Settings menu



          The T480 I think, has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 so it should be set to that. If it isn't, then you may need to install additional graphics drivers. This resolution can considered a high DPI display, so the standard scaling of 100% might appear too small (and 200% may be too big).



          The normal settings menu will only let you choose between 100% and 200%, however if install the Gnome Tweaks tool from the Ubuntu Software application, within it navigate to Fonts > Scaling Factor, then you can adjust that setting too, which might help.
          enter image description here






          share|improve this answer












          It's possible your scaling is set too large or your resolution is too low.
          You can change these by navigating to the settings menu > Devices > Screen Display



          Settings menu



          The T480 I think, has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 so it should be set to that. If it isn't, then you may need to install additional graphics drivers. This resolution can considered a high DPI display, so the standard scaling of 100% might appear too small (and 200% may be too big).



          The normal settings menu will only let you choose between 100% and 200%, however if install the Gnome Tweaks tool from the Ubuntu Software application, within it navigate to Fonts > Scaling Factor, then you can adjust that setting too, which might help.
          enter image description here







          share|improve this answer












          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer










          answered Nov 27 at 21:49









          Hugo

          571415




          571415












          • Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
            – hal
            Nov 27 at 22:23










          • try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
            – Joshua Besneatte
            Nov 27 at 22:38










          • Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 11:00










          • I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
            – Hugo
            Nov 28 at 17:47










          • Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 20:58


















          • Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
            – hal
            Nov 27 at 22:23










          • try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
            – Joshua Besneatte
            Nov 27 at 22:38










          • Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 11:00










          • I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
            – Hugo
            Nov 28 at 17:47










          • Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
            – hal
            Nov 28 at 20:58
















          Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
          – hal
          Nov 27 at 22:23




          Hey thanks for the answer. Yes I have already tried these and actually the resolution of the laptop is 2560x1440 , the scale by default set to 200%. I changed it to 100% but then everything is very small. There are no "special drivers" to install. At least it doesn't find any (plus the laptop doesn't bear any Nvdia or similar GC). So far I just used the scaling to make things somewhat better...
          – hal
          Nov 27 at 22:23












          try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
          – Joshua Besneatte
          Nov 27 at 22:38




          try setting your monitor resolution a little lower
          – Joshua Besneatte
          Nov 27 at 22:38












          Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
          – hal
          Nov 28 at 11:00




          Hey I tried it but it doesn't produce the desired result. The laptop has "WQHD IPS matt (2560 x1440)". Is it possible that this creates an issue? any ideas on how to proceed?
          – hal
          Nov 28 at 11:00












          I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
          – Hugo
          Nov 28 at 17:47




          I've been looking around but I haven't found any way to set the scaling between 100% and 200% :( you can run gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <1>}]", change the 1 to 2, 3, 4 etc to increase the scale but you cannot do 1.5, 2.5 etc.
          – Hugo
          Nov 28 at 17:47












          Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
          – hal
          Nov 28 at 20:58




          Yeah I know but it doesn't help either
          – hal
          Nov 28 at 20:58


















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