A problem
Small text and small objects
Sometimes, the default sizes for fonts and panels are a little small. If you like an interface with bigger text and bigger elements, some adjustments need to be made.In the Linux world of desktop environments, these settings usually follow a similar pattern.
A green tweak
Bigger text
"Adjust all fonts..." option for "Fonts" makes it easy to control font size (or font face or font style) in one go for most interface elements.Depending on your choice for desktop, you will find it in "System Settings", "Fonts", as it is the case with KDE Plasma 5. KDE Plasma 4 has "Fonts" under the "Application Appearance".
Larger panel
Still on KDE, the "Panel Tool Box" icon found on the right side of the panel reveals a... tool box, where by moving the "Height" handle up and down we can make the panel grow or shrink in size.
On other desktop environments, like LXDE, the "Panel Geometry" is the place where we can set up the height of the panel, this time using an input box to specify the height in pixels. The "Panel Geometry" is part of the "Panel Settings". One quick way to open the panel settings is right clicking the panel.
Another lightweight desktop environment, XFCE in Xubuntu, uses a slider for setting the panel height in pixels, and the panel can be unlocked and positioned anywhere on the screen by dragging using the panel edges.
Bigger mouse pointer
Linux desktop environments have different degrees of customization. When it come to mouse pointer theme, there are some that don't make it easy for the average user. There are others that go out of their way with providing easy and complete mouse theme customization options.It used to be that changing the mouse pointer theme and size meant a tedious affair: download a big cursor theme, copy it to "/usr/share/icons", change the "x-cursor-theme" alternative to the new theme, eventually create a ".Xresources" file in the home folder, specifying chosen theme and size for "Xcursor", all that in order to get a consistent mouse theme and size across applications.
KDE Plasma 4 and 5 allow for a much simpler and effective way to consistently change the mouse theme and size, through the "Cursor Theme" settings.
Mate desktop environment takes charge also, but the user needs to dig a little deeper: open the "Control Center", choose the "Look and Feel" group, go to "Appearance", select the "Theme" tab, and finally, the "Customize..." button opens up a new window with a "Pointer" tab. There, use a slider to set the pointer size from "Small" to "Large".
For the Gnome desktop environment we can use the dconf utility.
On the LXDE desktop environment in LXLE distro, which, like Gnome, is also striving to keep a simple interface, but in a different, less taxing way for the system, adding a big theme for mouse pointers is simply a matter of downloading the theme and then use the "Preferences" option in the menu to "Customize Look and Feel".
To note, regardless of the desktop environment we use, for the mouse pointer to grow to a certain size, the mouse theme has to provide the cursors at that size. If the mouse pointer does not grow when changing the settings, try using another mouse pointer theme.
Scaling
Gnome desktop environment has a handy tool for tweaks: the Tweak Tool. To note here, in the "Fonts" section, the "Scaling Factor" option.Sometimes, going overboard with font sizes may result in breaking the look for applications or widgets. For example, in Fedora 23 Gnome 3.18 edition, for font sizes above a certain value, the "Weather Widget" does not show the temperatures fully.
A combination of smaller font sizes (but still bigger than the default sizes) and a larger scaling factor fixes that while allowing the interface elements to grow to the desired size.
Window border and buttons
Changing the window border helps with identifying the window limits and getting a quicker handle for resize.Not all desktop environments are able to grow the title bar and the window buttons on it. Some will grow the title bar along with the font. Other desktop environment will not grow the title bar above a certain height, in which case, the larger the font, the awkward the final look of the title bar.
Thus, it may sometimes be necessary to try a few themes before finding a theme that is able to accommodate bigger window border and buttons, and sometimes you may need to choose another desktop environment entirely, if you must have these modifications.
This is the case with XFCE. We can change the font for the window title but we do not have a setting for window buttons size. Luckily, the "default-hdpi" theme found in the "Style" tab of the "Window Manager" menu entry adds large buttons for the window.
KDE Plasma 4 in Linux Mint 17.3 has both these settings available for "Window Decorations" in "System Settings" via "Workspace Appearance".
Recap
Tweaking the font sizes, panel heights, changing the mouse pointer size and adding scaling factors when needed, tweaking window border and buttons are usually the ways to produce a Linux interface with bigger elements. With these changes, Linux can fulfil a wide range of requirements, covering a large spectrum of users.
