Kali Beginners guide: How to Change Display Settings
Upon starting Kali back up, certain things may appear larger than expected. This could be because of HiDPI (aka High DPI). Depending on how the software was made, it could be using gtk2, gtk3, QT5, etc. This could be happening for various reasons, such as the graphic card drivers and/or the monitor profile.
How To increase icon size?
After logging into Kali, the wallpaper may look “normal”, but everything else might be “a little small to read”. Increasing the “Scaling Factor” from “x1” to “x2” should address this problem.
You have two ways of altering this, either graphical or through the command line. To alter the scaling factor to “x2“:
Graphical:
“Kali -> Settings -> Appearance -> Settings -> Windows Scaling“
“*Kali -> Settings -> Appearance -> Window Manager -> Theme: Kali-Dark-xHiDPI”
In a terminal window, run the following commands:
kali@kali:~$ echo export GDK_SCALE=2 >> ~/.xsessionrc
kali@kali:~$ xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/theme -s Kali-Dark-xHiDPI
kali@kali:~$ xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Gdk/WindowScalingFactor -n -t ‘int’ -s 2
How to increase font/cursor size in the terminal?
You need to set the following environmental variables in the ~/.xsessionrc file:
kali@kali:~$ echo export QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2 >> ~/.xsessionrc
Enabling HiDPI settings can cause some issues with the mouse size, and you might see how its size varies depending on the application you place it over. To solve this, you can force the cursor size with the following command:
kali@kali:~$ echo export XCURSOR_SIZE=48 >> ~/.xsessionrc
Upon opening some applications, the font may appear larger/smaller than expected. For example, this could be inside a terminal window.
You have two ways of altering this, either graphical or through the command line. To alter the DPI:
Graphical:
“Kali -> Settings -> Appearance -> Fonts -> DPI“
Enable: Custom DPI Settings
Value: 180
In a terminal window, run the following commands:
kali@kali:~$ nano ~/.xsessionrc
kali@kali:~$ cat ~/.xsessionrc
xrandr — dpi 200
Due to a bug, you will need to either toggle Custom DPI Settings or increase/decrease the value then restore it to the value previously.
The next time you open the program back up, the font should now be normal.
If you notice any issue with the login screen (lightdm), you can set “xft-dpi” to “180 (or higher)“.
In case you need a more general script to enable HiDPI on your desktop, here you have one that applies the configurations explained before. Remember to log out and in again after running it.
