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I'm running a Linux guest (Xubuntu 15.10 64bit) in VirtualBox 5.0.16 on a Windows 10 host. For unknown reasons, when I now boot into Xubuntu the resolution is extremely high making everything very tiny. In full screen I don't have any black margins - it really is full screen, but all elements (bar, fonts, windows...) are extremely tiny.

One thing that helps is setting scale to 200%, but even then everything is smaller than normal. This is a new occurrence, and I'm not aware of any change I did - before it all worked normal.

Selecting x86 virtualization solutions in Additional Drivers makes no difference. Checking or unchecking View/Auto-scale Guest display also does not solve the issue. I have the Guest Addons installed.

My Windows resolution is 3840 x 2160, the same value is listed in the guest's display settings.

Laptop is Lenovo Ideapad Y700.

Thank you.

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  • Will This help you at all?
    – NetworkKingPin
    Mar 29, 2016 at 7:11
  • Did you try changing the resolution to Full HD 1080p inside Ubuntu? What happens then? In windowed mode it should cover about one fourth of your screen. If this works correctly and the items are the right size, go from there and increase the resolution as much as you can from the virtualbox menu, maybe the display driver that came with xubutu cannot handle UHD correctly.
    – user576053
    Mar 29, 2016 at 8:07

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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+50

Xfce which is under the hood of Xubuntu doesn't support HiDPI yet (double resolution aka Retina(c)). Things will get better if you set your DPI to 192.

To do that follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings panel (top left corner, then settings icon)

Settings

  1. Choose appearence
  2. Click on tab Fonts
  3. Set DPI equal to 192 instead of 96 Result

You would also like to enlarge your panel, set it's width twices wider than default (24 -> 48). (Settings -> Panel -> Row size)

To make Window manager titles bigger select HiDPI wm theme in Window MAnager settings (it's called Default hdpi) enter image description here

As you may have seen some elements (like ticks) are still small. That's due to obselete GUI library, GTK2.

Here you can read more about Desktop environments which support HiDPI. If you are unsatisfied with the outcome try another Desktop Environment. Personally, I recommend you to use GNOME 3 in fallback mode. To install gnome:

  1. Type in terminal sudo apt install gnome-desktop
  2. Logout
  3. In Login manager select Gnome session
  4. Log back in
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  • Thank you! I just wish you posted a couple of minutes earlier - out of despair I wiped my linux and reinstalled VirtualBox. You managed to identify the problem correctly. I went for cinnamon as it seems it has the best HiDPI support (xfce with your suggestions worked too, but it looked pretty terrible). Thank you - now that I know that the issue is HiDPI I'll be on the lookout.
    – user152925
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:40
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Open the vm, in top menu:

  • view -> virtual screen 1 ->
  • scale to 200% (or some other percentage suitable for you).
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  • 3
    Best answer! Problem solved using VirtualBox settings that are easily changeable! Thanks!
    – Tim
    Jan 15, 2022 at 2:27
  • This answer fixed the issue. Do you know what causes this issue? It seems that it happens randomly.
    – yoyo_fun
    Mar 14, 2022 at 19:24
  • @yoyo_fun Maybe due to the resolution is too big.
    – Eric
    Mar 15, 2022 at 0:07
  • @Eric When I start VirtualBox everything starts normally. After several days in which I connected to the Windows Host PC via Remote Desktop, the VirtualBox font became very small. I did not change the resolution.
    – yoyo_fun
    Mar 15, 2022 at 12:07
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In XFCE guest systems you can solve this by:

Settings -> Appereance -> Settings -> Windows scaling: 2x

It doesn't solve everything - but it's not blurry like other proposed solutions and not tiny.

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  • How is this better than accepted answer?
    – Toto
    Apr 6, 2022 at 19:54
  • That didn't work for me well. There is not just one approach to it and there is not any solution which would work perfectly. Which is sad, but it is true ... Maybe because of version i use. Also there is just one option to switch on the go - i am switching between monitors.
    – spenat28
    Apr 9, 2022 at 20:46
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The trick is to go into or out of full screen mode after you do this: File->Preference->Display and change the scale as you like.

If you don't do screen mode change (hit right side Ctrl button and F key together), the change of setting in Display will have no effect.

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