Fixing Pinch Zoom Issue On Pop OS

February 17, 2025 1 min read
how-tolinux

Table Of Contents

  1. The issue
  2. The solution

In Pop OS, the pinch zoom on browsers increases the font size instead of just zooming in the viewport. There is simple fix for that.

# The issue

By default, Pop OS uses X Window System, also known as X11.

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

The above command will return x11.

# The solution

The issue can be fixed by switching to Wayland which is a newer alternative to X11.

Wayland can be enabled by setting WaylandEnable=true in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf.

sudo vim /etc/gdm3/custom.conf

Then GNOME Desktop Manager (aka. gdm) has to be restarted.

sudo systemctl restart gdm

After running the above command, the screen will go blank for a second and log you out. Before logging in, Wayland has to be selected from the options which is located in bottom right corner.

If the below command is ran again, wayland will be printed.

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Now the pinch zoom is fixed.