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tiyin18343

Member

Registered: 2023-07-15

Posts: 2

high dpi scaling

Hi there! I've recently setup a Kali Linux XFCE kex desktop via WSL2 on my Windows 10 laptop with high dpi screen.

Using the out-of-the-box default window mode the high dpi scaling is done by Windows. That works okay, but it doesn't look as perfectly crisp as native Windows applications.

I've managed to fix that somewhat blurry look on my machine by:
* only starting the kex server without client from the kali terminal: `kex --start` instead of `kex`
* disabling Windows high-dpi scaling for the TigerVNC client by copying the binary to windows and adapting it's dpi compatibility settings and starting the client manually via a Windows shortcut
* Enabling "Kali HiDPI Mode"
see also: https://www.reddit.com/r/Kalilinux/comm … dpi_setup/

As already written there: The only thing missing from that part of the setup is a way to make startup as easy as using the integrated client (i.e. starting server & client with one simple command and not having to enter the vnc password manually)

My more pressing issue is, that there a few applications I'd like to use, that don't get scaled up inside my Kali Linux kex XFCE VNC Desktop setup and therefore are super tiny as though my 15" 4k laptop display was a 37" TV:

* LibreOffice
* unison-gtk
* bless
* emacs
* HexChat

see also my earlier posts on that here: https://lemmy.world/post/630718
and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/xfce/comments/ … lications/

I got quite a few other apps that (at least sometimes?) didn't have proper scaling out of the box working by prefixing the command line in their starter shortcut with `env QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2 ` - sadly that didn't work with those 4.

UPDATE: I've managed to workaround my issues with the first of those 4 apps (LibreOffice) by uninstalling all related packages from the Kali Linux repositories and instead downloading and installing all deb files in the 7.4.7.2 Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/

Actually, I'd prefer to use the seamless desktop mode. But it seems I can't, because I don't have the required permissions to install VcXsrv and adapt firewall settings in my Windows 10 host system. Starting single apps directly from Windows through their automatically created Windows "*App-Name* (kali-linux)" shortcuts works, but again looks a bit blurry / low-res compared to both native Windows apps and apps started inside the Kali Linux XFCE kex window mode desktop prepared as described in the beginning.

If anybody's reading this and has any hints for me what I could try to improve my setup, I'd love to hear about it!
Thank you for reading!

Last edited by tiyin18343 (2023-07-16 09:41:02)

tiyin18343

Member

Registered: 2023-07-15

Posts: 2

Re: high dpi scaling

Hah, I think I finally figured it out!

I did play around with those environment variables before:

export QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2
export GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5
export GDK_SCALE=2
export XCURSOR_SIZE=48

But didn't achieve success because none of those files seem to be applied on startup of my Kali Linux kex XFCE desktop session:
* ~/.xinitrc
* ~/.xserverrc
* ~/.xsessionrc
* ~/.profile

But after having tried each one and restart the XFCE desktop each time, I found one that actually is used: /usr/lib/win-kex/xstartup.
Setting this environment variable in there:

export GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5

and activating "Settings Manager" -> Appearance -> Fonts -> DPI -> "Custom DPI Setting" (leaving the proposed 192 next to the checkbox) now scales all apps (after another XFCE desktop restart), including those listed above, that neither scaled themselves out-of-the-box nor could be scaled by by prefixing their command with

env QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2

(which I needed to remove from all the shortcuts I've modified to prevent them to be scaled twice. yay.)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: high dpi scaling

Thank you for sharing your findings. Hopefully this helps someone else as well.

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