[Solved] Unresonably and unusable high guest monitor resolution in VMWare Workstation 17 on Linux Mint

[phunsoft]

I'm migrating my Lenono Thinkpad X1 Carbon (physical montitor resolution 1920 x 1080) from Windows 10 to Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon (using X11, not Wayland). For this, I currently have dual boot Windows 10 and Linux on that machine.

I've been running VMWare Workstation for a long time, currently V17.6.1. under Windows with no problem. The virtual machines (Windows XP, 7, 10, and Linux Mint) run fine in VMWare on Windows and basiclly run on VMWare on Linux as well, but there are problems with the guest monitor resolution on Linux.

On Windows

The guest monitor resolution for Windows guests in full screen mode matches the physical monitor resolution (1920 x 1080). In non-full screen mode, the resolution automatially adjust to the window size.

The guest monitor resolution for Linux guests is always the equal to the physical resolution (1920 x 1080), no matter whether running fill screen or windowed. Resizeing the the windos size does not change the guest resolution. While not perfect, You can work with this.

On Linux

The guest monitor resolution is some fanciful such as 2326 x 1384 (for a linux Mint guest), or 3072 x 1728 (for a Windows XP guest). 

I've tried all the display related settings with no difference in behaviour, except when I change the guest's setting to a very specific monitor size, suc as 1920 x 1080. However, this does not help at all, since this will show the guest "monitor" centered in the gueast window (which still has the fanciful resolution). 

This resolution leads to text and icons so small, you can't read without a magnifying glass.

Any hint on what might be wrong here?

[RaSystemlord]

I don't know about Mint, even less about changing its graphics interface. I know that Linux versions are not matters of opinion, but they are religions, but I haven't used Mint.

Before 2020, I used regularly Ubuntu and Windows hosts and mixing before them. No problems. Sometime then, with Win10 and newer Ubuntu's, somebody created 3 errors in VMware use at a Linux host and I stopped doing that. Win 10 computer wouldn't even shut down properly and eventually it would break. Less did Ubuntu Host support NTFS for VM computer - that made mixed use practically impossible - no idea if it works now.

Nowadays, I use Win10 Host and I have Kubuntu versions in there (and some tens of Windows 10/11 VMs). Often, I don't bother installing VMware Tools in there. All the Kubuntu VM window changes work just like in Windows VM, no problems. When I use something else, like Kali, in a brief study, I don't load Tools either, the windowing has much the same problems that you describe. In that case, I change the resolution of the VM computer itself, to 1400x1050 or something, and that way, I have a decent VM where to work briefly.

Maybe you can deduct from there that Mint graphics system is not by default compatible with you Host VMware. How to make it compatible - I have no idea, there are tons of parameters in VMware - perhaps in Mint, too.

Not sure if this helps any, but perhaps you wanted to know about some experiences with Linux and VMware.

[phunsoft]

After more investigation, reading, and playing, I finally I found that the data returned by xrandr is suspicouy, at least:

Mint:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3072 x 1728, maximum 16384 x 16384
eDP-1 connected primary 3072x1728+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 309mm x 174mm
   1920x1080     60.05*+  60.05  
   1680x1050     60.05  
   1400x1050     60.05  
   1600x900      60.05  
...

The third row shows the actual physical dimensions of the display, and also what the host Linux is using. However, rows 1 & 2 show some fictive resolution (3072x1728). Why that?

It turned out that using the turning on "Enable fractional scaling controls", and setting the scaling to something other than 100%, or 200% causes this weird fictional resolution, which obviously confuse VMWare guests (and Wine apps the same, btw.).

Turning off "Enable fractional scaling controls", and VMWare guests (as well as Wine apps) behave as expected.

I had turned this on, because 100% scaling on my 1920x1080 14" display produces too small fonts and graphics (for my eyes).