HOWTO: Scale Your Display under Linux

I managed to get my netbook to 1536x900, and the screen is still readable. The really great thig is Ardour now fits on a desktop.. it's too wide for a 1.24 pxel desktop. I don't need to go to 1536x900 to use it but it's cool that I can.

I've tried the following.

xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1024x600 --scale 1.50x1.50 --panning 1536x900

xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1024x600 --scale 1.33x1.33 --panning 1361x798

and xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1024x600 --scale 1.28x1.28 --panning 1310x768

as well as Jeff's suggestion, they all seem quite good.

Indeed, I baked this (xrandr --scale) into Jupiter a long time ago because it was so handy.

I've been using just Linux for a few years now and I just came across this trick yesterday myself. I figured if I had not heard of it before there had to be at least a few others :)

~Jeff

> By default your are typically forced into one of two choices:

Jeff, doesn't you laptop let you specify that the two displays are different? Mine does. I don't have to have the same display on each.

Note the important use of the word "typically". Of course you can configure it to use something else, but by default most hardware just mirrors the screen on the external display.

~Jeff

I don't really care, my netbook's video card allows 2 monitors with different resolutions, but that is not how I typically use it. Typically I use it stand a lone with it's own monitor only. Being able to increase the resolution to somethig similar to a full size laptop is something I've wanted for almost as long as I've had the device.