Matt Van Stone

One thing about Ubuntu I find is it is more geared to higher resolutions… either that, or they like huge ass fonts and icons at lower resolutions. I still dual boot with Windows XP for a few reasons. I have a Harmony remote that can only be updated through Windows, and I use Guitar Pro 5, which I haven’t taken the time yet to try and get working through Wine.

Anyway, every time I boot in Windows I am surprised at how much bigger my monitor looks. Fact is, it looks bigger because XP came out when 1024 was pretty much the highest resolution anyone used. When you run it at 1920×1200 it seems like such a higher resolution because the fonts and icons are not scaled larger to match the it. Then I boot back into Ubuntu and everything seems so large.

It is actually pretty simple to modify these settings. In fact I fixed it by changing two simple options.

Icon Sizes

1. Open up a Nautilus window by double clicking on any drive or folder
2. Go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences
3. Under Icon View Defaults change Default zoom level from 100% to 75%
4. Click Close to save the settings

Font Sizes

1. Under the System menu go to Preferences and select Font
2. Click the Details… button
3. Change the resolution from 92 to 75 dots per inch
4. If you have an LCD display, select the Smoothing and Hinting settings that make the fonts look the cleanest (I chose Subpixel for Smoothing and Slight for Hinting)
5. Click Close, and then Close again on the next window to save the settings
6. Log out and log back in to make the change system wide

You will now see that your icons are 25% smaller and your fonts are about 20% smaller. Depending on your monitor size, resolution, and eye vision these settings might not be ideal for you, but you can play with them to get a setting that works. These are just what are best for me.

Here are some screenshots of before and after the change on my computer. Beware, they are quite large (1920×1200).

View before image

View after image