I want to flag this as a serious usability issue, not a minor cosmetic complaint. Autopsy on Linux currently renders with extremely small fonts and UI elements on any HiDPI display, to the point where the application is genuinely difficult to use for real work.
System details:
OS: CachyOS, KDE Plasma
Display: HiDPI laptop panel, system DPI reported as 158 (Xft.dpi)
Autopsy version: 4.22.1 (AUR package)
Java: java17-openjfx-bin / java-environment=17
What I tried, none of which worked:
-J-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=1.5 and other scale factors added to default_options in autopsy.conf
_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Dswing.useSystemFontSettings=false -Dsun.java2d.dpiaware=false"
--fontsize 16 appended to default_options (this actually broke the launcher entirely, Autopsy refused to start until I reverted the change)
--fontsize 16 as the argument for launching Autopsy from the terminal with autopsy --fontsize 16
This isn't a new complaint. Searching this forum turns up multiple threads on this exact font/scaling problem going back to at least 2019. So the actual state of this issue, after 7 years of reports, is: no fix, and barely any acknowledgment.
That's the part I want to push on. HiDPI laptops are the default today, not the exception, especially for students and new analysts who are increasingly on Linux and aren't running 1080p desktop monitors. If Autopsy wants to stay a viable, accessible entry point into digital forensics outside of Windows or paid tools, a multi-year-old, repeatedly-reported, completely unaddressed rendering bug on two of its three supported platforms is not something that should keep getting silently dropped. This needs an actual fix at the rendering layer, or at minimum, an acknowledgment from someone on the team that it's being looked at.
I'll attach screenshots showing the actual rendered size relative to the screen. Happy to provide more logs or test patches if anyone from the dev team wants to dig into this.
I want to flag this as a serious usability issue, not a minor cosmetic complaint. Autopsy on Linux currently renders with extremely small fonts and UI elements on any HiDPI display, to the point where the application is genuinely difficult to use for real work.
System details:
OS: CachyOS, KDE Plasma
Display: HiDPI laptop panel, system DPI reported as 158 (Xft.dpi)
Autopsy version: 4.22.1 (AUR package)
Java: java17-openjfx-bin / java-environment=17
What I tried, none of which worked:
-J-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=1.5and other scale factors added todefault_optionsinautopsy.conf_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Dswing.useSystemFontSettings=false -Dsun.java2d.dpiaware=false"--fontsize 16appended todefault_options(this actually broke the launcher entirely, Autopsy refused to start until I reverted the change)--fontsize 16as the argument for launching Autopsy from the terminal withautopsy --fontsize 16This isn't a new complaint. Searching this forum turns up multiple threads on this exact font/scaling problem going back to at least 2019. So the actual state of this issue, after 7 years of reports, is: no fix, and barely any acknowledgment.
That's the part I want to push on. HiDPI laptops are the default today, not the exception, especially for students and new analysts who are increasingly on Linux and aren't running 1080p desktop monitors. If Autopsy wants to stay a viable, accessible entry point into digital forensics outside of Windows or paid tools, a multi-year-old, repeatedly-reported, completely unaddressed rendering bug on two of its three supported platforms is not something that should keep getting silently dropped. This needs an actual fix at the rendering layer, or at minimum, an acknowledgment from someone on the team that it's being looked at.
I'll attach screenshots showing the actual rendered size relative to the screen. Happy to provide more logs or test patches if anyone from the dev team wants to dig into this.