# Ten tweaks for EOS i3 wm on lenovo with high dpi

**URL:** <https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ten-tweaks-for-eos-i3-wm-on-lenovo-with-high-dpi/10363>\
**Category:** All WMs\
**Created:** [December 13, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ten-tweaks-for-eos-i3-wm-on-lenovo-with-high-dpi/10363 "2020-12-13T21:57:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zircon34](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/zircon34/32/135623_2.png) [@Zircon34](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Zircon34)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ten-tweaks-for-eos-i3-wm-on-lenovo-with-high-dpi/10363/1 "2020-12-13T21:57:06Z")

</div>

– **Intro**  
Yesterday I installed EOS i3 wm on my lenovo P1 with high dpi screen (3840x2160). I used the online installer, nvidia option and chose only i3 wm.I did quite some search to fix fonts, icon, grub and login screen scaling using i3 wm. Out of the box everything appears tiny. After the fix you will be 😁

I summarize here briefly a list of things to do to fix these issues.

– **Hardware**

> **Summary**
>
> ```auto
> inxi -Fxxc0z 
> 
> ```
> 
> output can be found here [http://ix.io/2HTM](http://ix.io/2HTM)

– **High dpi screen fixes for scaling issue in i3wm (tiny text+icons)**

1. change scaling global (Xft) and Rofi (overview apps) in ~/.Xresources

```auto
Xft.dpi:230
Xft.antialias: 1
rofi.dpi: 192

```

1. change font sizes in .config/i3/config  
`font pango:Noto Sans Regular 12`

2. fix icon sizes in QT and GTK apps by appending these lines to ~/.profile

```auto
export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0
export QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS=2 
export GDK_SCALE=2
export GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5

```

1. Fix grub resolution in /etc/default/grub (sudo) and apply settings

`GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768x32,auto`

```auto
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

```

1. fix login screen resolution and fonts in /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf

```auto
xft-dpi=220 
font-name = Noto Sans 12

```

– **Additional useful fixes**

1. make F5 and F6 brightness buttons work in .config/i3/config

```auto
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec xbacklight -inc 10
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec xbacklight -dec 10

```

edit: on Feb 2021 EOS iso, had to install this for thinkpad t490s

```auto
sudo pacman -S xorg-xbacklight

```

1. fix annoying Zoom app “screen sharing with dark shadow overlay (transparency)”

in /etc/xdg/picom.conf  
`shadow-opacity = 0.1;`

in /.config/i3/config

```auto
#exec --no-startup-id picom -cC
exec --no-startup-id picom -o 0

```

Edit: 8) firefox scrolling tearing… looks like this was due to hybrid grafics not configured well. To fix this, I installed optimus manager and run in hybrid mode (also to be able to connect external monitor):

```auto
yay -S optimus-manager-qt

```

– **Not fixed yet (work in progress)**

1. touchpad acceleration to move across screen…

2. check high dpi scaling and apps on external monitors

Edit: tried to connect a 1920x1080 monitor to my 3840x2160 laptop screen, oh boy… since I changed the dpi (which is required to scale all the tiny icons, not only text…) the text and icons on the external monitor appear gigantic. I will edit back here, tried to play around with xrandr commands and assigning different scaling and resolutions to screens, no luck at the moment. I know that it works well with cinnamon, must be able to find a way to make it work.

---

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