UI Scaling for Linux

[Audiojunkie]

Hello,

I see that Mac Retina scaling for OSX is supported, but I don't see it mentioned for other OSes. Is there a way to scale up DrumGizmo (and related apps) on Linux? I currently run a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 5, with a high resolution screen on Arch-based OSes. I run my Gnome desktop environment at 200% to see everything as it should be--like how Apple Retina works. I can't seem to find a way to scale up DrumGizmo. It remains very tiny and unusable. Is there a way to get it to scale up?

[deva]

"Retina" should be supported on all platforms, but the code activating it only runs on OSX. I'll add it to the roadmap to somehow detect and use it on other high-res displays as well.

[Loki Harfagr]

I guess i'll be easier when these kind of setttings will be integrated in the most used tools (like Ardour, Drunmgizmo, etc.) but here's a Q&D way to try (so far it'll work for sane apps):

1) spawn background an auxilliary Xserver, here an example supposing you start from a screen phisically sized 3840x2160 on 192dpi (as mine is):
Xephyr :1 -screen 3840x2160 -dpi 384 &
2) launch one of your favorite desktop, preferably a light one and a clean one, obviously not he same as the one you're using or at least not using the same init config file (or it'll spawn again all its inner autolaunches and such), here as an example openbox (my main being Xfce4):
DISPLAY=:1 openbox-session &
3) finally launch the desired app. (supposing it's behaved re. the size and dpi it sees on arrival), here an example with the Ktool okular:
DISPLAY=:1 okular

Disclaimer, I don't have your hardware nor your installation so a few leprechauns may be at work in between, good luck anyway

[d.healey]

I run my Gnome desktop environment at 200%

I use Cinnamon and I have two scaling options, I can choose Scaling from 74% to 200% or I choose User Interface Scaling which gives the options Normal or Double (Hi-DPI). I've found using User Interface Scaling >> Hi-DPI gives better scaling results than selecting 200% from the scaling menu. I don't know if these options are available in Gnome Shell but might be worth having a look.

[Audiojunkie]

"Retina" should be supported on all platforms, but the code activating it only runs on OSX. I'll add it to the roadmap to somehow detect and use it on other high-res displays as well.

That would be greatly appreciated!!

[sunrat]

KDE Plasma has the best scaling currently - it enables scaling in 6.25% increments. Setting font size can also be effective in most DEs. Gnome and Xfce still have rubbish scaling. Xfce does also have HiDPI WM themes available. MX Linux has it's own utilities to help with scaling so I guess AVL-MXE would inherit those too.
Alternatively one can use xrandr to set incremental scaling, and use an autostart script or systemd service file to implement it at boot.