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\nYour preferred screen resolution is not available in the Display settings? Well, here I’m going to show you how to add a custom screen resolution in your Ubuntu desktop.<\/p>\n
\nYour preferred screen resolution is not available in the Display settings? Well, here I’m going to show you how to add a custom screen resolution in your Ubuntu desktop.<\/p>\n
On my Ubuntu Desktop, the default 1920X1080 (16:9) resolution is kinda high for me. Though there are options to scale for menu, title bars, and text, I prefer 1400X900 (3:2) which however is not available to choose from display setting panel.<\/p>\n
To do the job, I found 2 solutions that work in all current Ubuntu releases:<\/p>\n And they are tested and work in my case in Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, and 25.04.<\/b><\/p>\n 1. Find out display device name<\/b>.<\/p>\n Before getting started, you need to find out the device name of your displays.<\/p>\n For X11\/Xorg<\/b> session, simply press It will output all connected displays as well as available screen resolutions. Here you need to find out and remember the display names. In my case as the screenshot shows, it’s DP-1<\/b>.<\/p>\n For Wayland<\/b>, which is the default session since Ubuntu 22.04, open terminal and run the command below instead:<\/p>\n This command will look for all devices under 2. Add Kernel Parameter<\/b>.<\/p>\n For Ubuntu booted with its built-in Grub boot-loader, user can edit the First, press For non-GNOME desktop, replace When file opens, add video=DP-1:1400×900@60<\/b> value for GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. And, here:<\/p>\n NOTE: You can’t set a resolution higher than the one your physical display can handle.<\/p>\n And, for multiple display<\/b>, add either:<\/p>\n 3. Update Grub to apply change<\/b><\/p>\n After edited the file, save it (for nano press Ctrl+S to save, then Ctrl+X to exit), and run the command below to apply change:<\/p>\n Finally, restart computer and go “Display” setting page for the new screen resolution.<\/p>\n Tips:<\/b> For users who have Grub Customizer<\/a> installed, then just launch the tool and navigate to General Settings<\/b> page to add kernel parameters.<\/p>\n For the classic X11\/Xorg session, that’s default in current MATE, XFCE, etc desktop environments, there’s a built-in xrandr<\/b> command line tool to set screen size.<\/p>\n 1.<\/b> First open terminal by pressing As mentioned above, this command output all connected displays as well as their screen resolutions. You need to find out and remember the target display name<\/p>\n 2.<\/b> Run command to calculate VESA CVT mode lines by given resolution:<\/p>\n Here replace 3.<\/b> Copy the Modeline in the last command output, and run command to add new mode:<\/p>\n NOTE here you need to replace the section in red after 4.<\/b> Finally add the new created mode for your display device:<\/p>\n Replace DP-1<\/b> (see step1) and ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/display-no14900.webp\")
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Method 1: Add custom screen resolution as Kernel parameter<\/h3>\n
Ctrl+Alt+T<\/code> to open terminal. Then, run the command below:<\/p>\nxrandr<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nfor p in \/sys\/class\/drm\/*\/status; do con=${p%\/status}; echo -n \"${con#*\/card?-}: \"; cat $p; done<\/pre>\n\/sys\/class\/drm<\/code> directory, print the names and their status (connected or not). In my case, I have 2 displays connected. They are eDP-1<\/b> laptop built-in display, and DP-1<\/b> external display.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\/etc\/default\/grub<\/code> file to add kernel parameters.<\/p>\nCtrl+Alt+T<\/code> on keyboard to open terminal, and run command to edit that file:<\/p>\nsudo gnome-text-editor \/etc\/default\/grub<\/pre>\n
gnome-text-editor<\/code> with your desktop text editor, or use nano<\/code> cli tool that works in most Linux<\/i><\/p>\n\n
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video=1400x900@60<\/code> (skip device name) that works for all connected displays,<\/li>\nvideo=eDP-1:1360x700@60 video=DP-1:1600x900@60<\/code> to set video size separately.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/a><\/p>\nsudo update-grub<\/pre>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMethod 2: Use xrandr command<\/h3>\n
Ctrl+Alt+T<\/code> key combination on keyboard. When it opens, run command:<\/p>\nxrandr<\/pre>\n
cvt 1400 900 60<\/pre>\n
1400 900<\/code> with your desired screen resolution. The refresh rate 60 is optional, though you may replace it with yours.<\/p>\nsudo xrandr --newmode \"1400x900_60.00\" 103.50 1400 1480 1624 1848 900 903 913 934 -hsync +vsync<\/span><\/pre>\n--newmode<\/code> with the output in last command.<\/p>\nsudo xrandr --addmode DP-1<\/span> \"1600x900_60.00\"<\/b><\/pre>\n\"1400x900_60.00\"<\/code> (Step 2 or 3) in the command.<\/p>\n