One of the disappointing aspects of Ubuntu's 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope was that some
applications were clearly not designed with a netbook's screen in mind. This
occasionally led to some guessing as to where to click. The solution: tell Linux
to pretend the screen is much bigger.
Today I still find this trick useful if I'm designing, say, a large poster, and
don't want to hotkey sidebars on and off.
Step 1: Determine the Maximum Resolution of your Video Card
Type:
For me this gives:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 32767 x 32767
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 256mm x 144mm
1366x768 60.0*+
1360x768 59.8 60.0
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3 56.2
640x480 59.9
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
The important lines, as mentioned below, are these:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 32767 x 32767
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 256mm x 144mm
Be sure to note your current resolution (1366x768).
Step 2: Make the Screen Bigger
xrandr --output LVDS1 --panning 2000×2000
The specified size (2000x2000) must fall within the maximum resolution
(32767x32767) found above. The output (LVDS1) is also found above. Note that
if you make the screen truly ginormous, your video card and OS are likely going
to have to do some heavy thinking. The --panning option means that positioning
the mouse near the edge of the screen will result in it panning over.
Step 3: Return to Normal
Hopefully you made a note of your original resolution.