I did a fresh install with a minimal X server in order to do an install of Qt5/KDEF5/Plasma 5 only then installed them via the standard 13.2 repo (with the plasma5-session package/pattern). I don’t know if it matters but I’ve left the compositor enabled with the default OpenGL 2.0/GLX settings and disabled all Desktop Effects for now, at least.
The Plasma UI (UX?) is scaled way too large in a lot of respects. Especially icons in the Plasma UI, not the desktop icons however. The ‘Add widgets’ thing is way too large to be usable. There are a few things that look out of place too. Here are some screenshot examples.
xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
1920x1080 60.00*+ 59.94 30.00 24.00 29.97 23.98
1920x1080i 60.00 59.94
1600x1200 60.00
1280x1024 60.02
1360x768 60.02
1280x720 60.00 59.94
1024x768 60.00
800x600 60.32
720x480 60.00 59.94
640x480 60.00 59.94
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Pitcairn XT [Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition]
find /dev -group video
/dev/fb0
/dev/dri/card0
/dev/dri/controlD64
server glx vendor string: SGI
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
Any suggestions on how to get it to a “normal” state?
P.S. I want to post this over on the KDE Forums as well but it’s impossible to create a user account (“KDE Identity”) right now.
apparently this can happen in multimonitor setup. i.e. wrong monitor gets set as default. i guess removing HDMI attached monitor and restarting X could confirm this
I only have one display (it’s actually a 52 inch LCD TV).
I’m not sure how your suggestion would work or still be applicable being as I only have one display and not two.
Looks like a DPI issue to me. Plasma 5 tries to scale the UI according to that.
HDMI-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
I doubt that your 52 inch TV would have a size of only 160x90mm, so that’s the problem apparently. These values will result in a huge DPI value.
What does this say?
xdpyinfo |grep resol
What driver are you using?
If radeon, you might try fglrx. The repo is available since yesterday. Maybe you can adjust values in the Catalyst Control Center (never used it myself, so I’m not sure).
If that doesn’t help, you probably should specify the correct size of your display in the Xorg configuration, or set the DPI value manually (also possible via xrandr)…
After a lot of reading I figured that the DPI/screen size could be the issue. I wasn’t sure how to troubleshoot it though.
xdpyinfo |grep resol
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
I’m pretty sure the driver is just the radeon driver because I didn’t change anything with drivers. I’m simply using what OpenSUSE comes with out-of-the-box.
Ok, so X changes the DPI to 96x96. But that might just as well be the problem.
Try to explicitely set a DPI value, I suppose about 40 should be good on a quick calculation.
I would suggest to open the file .xinitrc.template (in your home directory) in a text editor, and search for this:
## Add your own lines here...
#
Just below that, insert the following line:
xrandr --dpi 40
Save the file as .xinitrc (in your home directory), and logout/login.
Is it better now?
That did resize everything here (fonts, dialogs, including the icons in the panel), except the folderview’s icons. You have to resize them manually in the folderview’s settings.
I thought I mentioned it but I should have been more clear before. The folder view/desktop icon sizes are fine. They aren’t and have never been a problem. The menu icons (Kicker?) and the system tray icons for example are way too large as shown in the screenshot above.
Well, when I tried that here (radeon as well), it made everything smaller (unreadable actually on my system ) including the system tray icons. Just not the folderview icons.
I tried using the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the measurements needed like it recommended. I’m not sure I did it correctly though because after creating the section in 50-monitor.conf, absolutely nothing changed after rebooting. Here is the file:
# Having multiple "Monitor" sections is known to be problematic. Make
# sure you don't have in use another one laying around e.g. in another
# xorg.conf.d file or even a generic xorg.conf file. More details can
# be found in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32430.
#
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "<default monitor>"
DisplaySize 1151 647 # In millimeters
EndSection
#
# ## If your monitor doesn't support DDC you may override the
# ## defaults here
# #HorizSync 28-85
# #VertRefresh 50-100
#
# ## Add your mode lines here, use e.g the cvt tool
#
#EndSection
Here is the output from xrandr -q after rebooting (it’s still the same as before, showing 160mm x 90mm):
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
1920x1080 60.00*+ 59.94 30.00 24.00 29.97 23.98
1920x1080i 60.00 59.94
1600x1200 60.00
1280x1024 60.02
1360x768 60.02
1280x720 60.00 59.94
1024x768 60.00
800x600 60.32
720x480 60.00 59.94
640x480 60.00 59.94
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
I’m not sure I did it correctly though because after creating the section in 50-monitor.conf, absolutely nothing changed after rebooting. Here is the file:
Looks ok, but it doesn’t seem to be used.
I think you have to create a screen config as well (e.g. 50-screen.conf) that actually refers to your monitor config.
OTOH, you can also change the DPI value isystemsettings5:
Enable “Force Fonts DPI” in the Fonts config module, and set it to some suitable value (48 might be a good starting point for you).
This should have the same effect as the xrandr line before, and works the same here. Maybe that setting is the reason why it didn’t work for you?
Btw, I looked again, and the icons in the application launcher (kicker and kickoff) are not affected here either. It seems they use a hardcoded value. Might be worth a bug report.
As already mentioned, the system tray icons are scaled here though.
I experimented with changing the DPI in System Settings with that value and a few others but it didn’t work as intended. It scaled parts of Plasma such as the desktop/folder view icon font and clock font to unreadable size as well as the icons in the system tray. The kicker or kickoff icons do seem to be hardcoded to a certain size like you said which seems contrary to the rest of Plasma.
I’ll try the stuff with the corresponding config files. If that doesn’t work, I may try the Catalyst driver.
UPDATE:
Doing the thing with the matching config files got me right back to where I started. It scaled everything down (without setting the DPI setting) which seemed correct for the UI but not the font. The font was unreadable again so I set it to 96 in System Settings and almost everything looks correct expcept for kicker/kickoff.
Also, another question:
How do I remove widgets? I think some or all of the widgets are a bit oversized so I think that’s why I don’t see an ‘X’ or anything to remove them. Surely the Plasma widgets that come stock aren’t hardcoded in and unable to removed…
No, of course not. rotfl!
Actually the upstream defaults don’t have any widgets on the desktop at all.
Which ones do you mean btw?
The ones in the panel: right-click on the toolbox icon on the right end of the panel, then you can remove widgets by hovering over them and click on the appearing ‘X’, or by right-clicking on them and selecting “Remove this XXX”.
On the desktop: Either click on the close symbol ("X’) in the widget handle that appears when you move the mouse over them, or right-click on them and choose “Remove this XXX”.
Of course the widgets have to be unlocked, as gogalthorp mentioned, but they are by default.
Thanks for the tips guys. I didn’t know about the ‘X’ that appears when hovering or the fact that it has to be done after clicking on the toolbox icon.
This wasn’t necessary in earlier versions.
But people removed their task manager or system tray by mistake and complained, so that has been changed about a year ago (in KDE4 already).
) including the system tray icons. Just not the folderview icons.