Tiny font and elements in a Linux guest in VirtualBox

Solution 1:

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)

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

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)

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

Solution 2:

Open the vm, in top menu:

• view -> virtual screen 1 ->
• scale to 200% (or some other percentage suitable for you).