Xrandr to modify Virtual Desktop Size

If you, like me, are using Linux since the 90ies, you might remember the times when you could easily configure a virtual desktop size. Usually, you would configure a virtual desktop size bigger than the screen size.

I don’t know why, but in today’s KDE with OpenSUSE or Kubuntu, this no longer seems possible. This is sad.

However, I’ve found a workaround. The workaround is to use the xrandr command to configure the size of a virtual desktop. The following xrandr command could be used to have a virtual desktop of 1920x1080 when the screen size in fact is only 1600x900.

xrandr --fb 1920x1080 --output eDP --mode 1600x900 --panning 1920x1080

If you want to know the correct values for --output and --mode, just check the output of a vanilla xrandr command.