ubuntu 22 LTS not changing resolution on window resizing

[idar_lund]

Hi,

I've got an ubuntu 22.04.01 (with 5.15.0-58 kernel) arm64 on M1 MAX host OS.
It does have the vmwgfx driver which also is loaded. And I'm able to change resolution manually.
Desktop environment is xfce (xubuntu-desktop) session with lightdm.
Both open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop are installed.
The Display settings in Fusion 13 on the virtual machine is set to "Resize the virtual machine and the window".

When I'm resizing the window the screen resolution is still the same.

How can I fix this?

[Technogeezer]

Will the screen resolution and window size change if you set the screen resolution from within the VM. 

I remember an issue with Kali Linux (that also uses xfce as its window manager) where resizing the VM’s window does not change the resolution in the VM. The behavior was attributed to a deficiency in xfce not understanding the resize events. This happens on both Intel and ARM. Perhaps you are seeing the same thing? 

[idar_lund]

When I change the resolution within the VM the window size also changes.

[ColoradoMarmot]

I had similar issues.  Building a new VM with a later release solved it.  I think there was a lot of marginal code in 22.04.

[Technogeezer]

I just installed the Lunar server (23.04) daily and installed xubuntu-desktop and open-vm-tools-desktop.

The behavior I'm seeing on that release is that if I enlarge the window, the guest resolution stays constant with black bars around the visible part of the display. If I reduce the size of the window, it scales down the view of the guest display at the same aspect ratio. In either case If I open the Display settings in the VM, the new resolution that I changed the window to will appear in the Resolution: field. Selecting it will change the resolution to match the window size.

Kali Linux 2022.04 is behaving the same way.

Something wonky with how xfce is handling things on arm64. GNOME (and KDE Plasma) works fine. Xubuntu 22.10 install on Workstation 17 on Intel works as expected (resizing the window changes the resolution in the guest). 

[mffhg]

To workaround this issue, install your VM on VMware workstation and import it into your vsphere.

Looks like things will be handled different during Ubuntu installation when installing in a VM in VMware Workstation than in vSphere.

Maybe this workaround is also applicable when installing Ubuntu over ESXi Webinterface. Never tried it in our professional environment, but it worked on my home ESXi if I remember right.

Edit: I think I just found the cause for this problem. Looks like its Video Memory Problem.

Please check the Settings of your VM: Right click your VM, click Edit Settings, Tab Virtual Hardware.

Under Video card, select Auto-detect settings. You can also select Specify custom settings, but make sure you give enough video memory.

In our case, all Ubuntu VMs which were installed over vSphere only had 4MB Video memory, so we were not able to select high resolutions and even auto resize was not working well. If you install a Ubuntu VM in VMware Workstation, it looks like the video settings are on automatic mode by default.

Looks like this solved our resolution problem.

Maybe it worked for @ColoradoMarmotwith newer Ubuntu Version , because this issue is fixed in a newer vSphere Versions?

[ColoradoMarmot]

That's not an option for Fusion users on ARM systems.

It resets every time I reboot the VM, but I'm able to resize it properly after it's booted.