TLDR: Is there a way to avoid having the “Global Scale” percentage in Display Configuration panel (of System Settings) make it hard to use dual monitors of vastly different resolutions?
Greetings. This is likely a KDE Plasma DE issue since I’ve experienced it inside Manjaro, too. If not, feel free to move it elsewhere.
My challenge:
Using a high resolution (iMac 2019 hardware) as my primary @ its top 3840 x 2160, I need to up the “global scale” to about 200% before I can see most screen elements with these aging eyes. Works quite nicely.
The challenge then becomes trying to use a second monitor with a top resolution of only 1680x1050. This is because the global scale applies to BOTH monitors thereby rendering the secondary monitor’s output size to be so enormous it’s virtually unusable.
Is there any way to have one zoom level for the primary (e.g., 200%) and keep the scale at 100% (normal) for the dual monitor?
If not possible through the GUI settings, is there another way I could intervene to override the resolution/zoom to produce somewhat comparable “sized” screens - with fonts of roughly the same visual size range when moving things between the two monitors?
For now, I’ve simply unplugged the extra monitor … yes, it’s that difficult to use.
Thanks for any insights you might be able to share!
Actually I’m quite pleased with Plasma … having heard stories of issues with Wayland, seems like something to avoid for a while until kinks are worked out.
No, no NVIDIA around here, so it’s not that either.
Actually, truth in advertising: it’s called “Global” scale, so I can’t complain that it’s … well … global I was just wondering if there’s some way to get it to be, less, global.
Multi-monitor support has always been a deficiency of (otherwise great) KDE Plasma.
I don’t think there is a satisfactory way to use two monitors of vastly different resolutions on Plasma. That’s one of the reasons I have two identical monitors, and why I generally avoid 4K screens (the other two reasons being the price, and the fact I have poor eyesight so I can’t really appreciate 4K in all of its glory).
I’m afraid you are likely correct. Alas, perhaps it’s time to bite the bullet and move over to a tiling DE, like i3 (under EOS) … in fact, this gives me the push to head in that direction.
Indeed, I have. It comes down to “dummy’ing down” my delightfully crisp looking hi-res screen for the sake of being able to use an extra screen with so-so resolution by comparison. Couldn’t find a happy middle ground on that approach.
Ah, thanks for the heads up. I recalled reading that an environment like i3 permitted different dual monitor resolutions. Perhaps that’s without scaling them differently … didn’t read the fine print
I was just wondering if there’s some way to get it to be, less, global. 
