Information on proper settings for 3840 x 2160 resolution?

Support Graphics & Display
1

Would you please point me to where I might learn the proper methods of adjusting the settings for a screen resolution of 3840 by 2160 (16:9)?

I told my sister how great Manjaro is and that I could install it on her machine (which is far better than mine) and, after the initial install, everything is very tiny.

I see that I can adjust the “global scale” in display settings but would like to know what the proper approach is. Can the DPI simply be changed or double the font size, etc.?

It’s the newest version of KDE installed today on an HP Z Book Fury G8.

I selected proprietary drivers because it has an NVIDIA graphics cards.

EDIT: I should’ve wrote that scaling to exactly 200% “fixes” about everything, so far, except the mouse pointer is very tiny and moves smaller distance (fixed this by changing the pointer speed and eventually saw where to change the cursor size); and the log-in menu is still very small.

Thank you.

2

Thats it.

Set scaling to maybe 2x. (half of that resolution is 1920x1080, so seems right?).

Oh.
Then you need to go to cursors and set the size. Keep in mind the range is determined by the theme.
System Settings > Appearance & Style > Colors & Themes > Cursors
(“Size: XX” Button at top)

For SDDM you need to go there and ‘apply plasma settings’.
System Settings > Appearance & Style > Colors & Themes > Login Screen (SDDM)
(“Apply Plasma Settings” Button at top)

Note: I am on Unstable and Plasma 6.1 … exact paths may vary slightly.

1 Like
3

Thank you. All of those items appear to have worked, except the SDDM. The path is the same and I could make the selection to apply the theme to the SDDM but it didn’t “take.” There is a note that the theme files must be installed globally to apply to the SDDM login screen. All I know how to do is pick a theme from the selections offered in System Settings and that is all under the heading of Global Theme.

Do I need to do something else to ensure it is global?

Thank you.

4

Themes ‘installed globally’ would exist in /usr/share/ and not in HOME.

So from a package or put there from manual sudo make install etc.

We can also check your configs;

head -n -0 /etc/sddm.conf.d/*

Or for a paste

head -n -0 /etc/sddm.conf.d/* | curl -F 'file=@-' https://0x0.st
5

Thank you.
I think this means it’s global.

head -n -0 /etc/sddm.conf.d/*                                                                  ✔ 
==> /etc/sddm.conf.d/00_manjaro_settings.conf <==
[Theme]
Current=breath

==> /etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf <==
[Theme]
CursorSize=54
CursorTheme=Breeze_Light
Font=Noto Sans,12,-1,5,400,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1

[X11]
ServerArguments=-dpi 192

==> /etc/sddm.conf.d/virtualkeyboard.conf <==
InputMethod=qtvirtualkeyboard

Only the very first initial log-in at boot is small. If the machine requires a log-in after sleep or for privileges, those are normal size.

6

One is SDDM - the others are kscreenlocker.

That would seem to have the correct things.

One difference is that I dont have that manjaro settings file or the keyboard one.
(Neither should matter for our purposes** - though that manjaro one is forcing the breath theme … which was broken. Maybe its fixed now? I dont know.)

But mainly that I use the wayland backend.

==> /etc/sddm.conf.d/wayland.conf <==
[General]
DisplayServer=wayland
GreeterEnvironment=QT_WAYLAND_SHELL_INTEGRATION=layer-shell

[Wayland]
EnableHiDPI=true
CompositorCommand=kwin_wayland --drm --no-lockscreen --no-global-shortcuts --locale1

Also note the EnableHiDPI switch.

**Extra Note.

While reviewing this for your query I realized that if you do use the wayland backend and do want virtual keyboard input you would probably want to disable the existing virtualkeyboard.conf (comment out the file, or remove it, etc) as well as add a flag to the CompositorCommand line as seen at the archwiki: SDDM - ArchWiki

Ex:

==> /etc/sddm.conf.d/wayland.conf <==
[General]
DisplayServer=wayland
GreeterEnvironment=QT_WAYLAND_SHELL_INTEGRATION=layer-shell

[Wayland]
EnableHiDPI=true
CompositorCommand=kwin_wayland --drm --no-lockscreen --no-global-shortcuts --locale1 --inputmethod qtvirtualkeyboard
7

Thank you for all this information. I’ll need to do some studying/investigating because this part is new to me. I do not recall explicitly choose a windowing system and have x11.

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE                                                                                                                                         
# x11
loginctl show-session $(loginctl show-user $(whoami) -p Display --value) -p Type --value                                                                        ✔ 
# x11

So, I don’t understand a Wayland backend and will have to research it.

It appears that everything looks about normal except the SDDM log-in and the GRUB screen, both of which are still small.

8

You can choose your session from SDDM in the corner before login.
Wayland is the future, is more secure, etc.
I would suggest trying to move to it if possible.
Though it will require certain application tweaks or replacements.

Using wayland backend for SDDM is separate from your desktop session though and you can use either with either as far as I know.

That is changing the SDDM backend should not matter for what desktop session (xorg or wayland) you use.

Thatd be yet another thing.

In my case just setting the resolution and using a theme worked fine, ex:

/etc/default/grub

[...]

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command 'videoinfo'
GRUB_GFXMODE=2240x1400x32,1024x768x32,auto

[...]

But the archwiki has other suggestions about using a lower resolution and/or changing font.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI#GRUB

1 Like
9

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.