So I tried rolling with Budgie however the lack of fractional scaling made it unusable. 100% is way to small and 200% is was to big, I need 150%. Is XFCE similar to Budgie? And since XFCE is beta, what exactly does that mean?I tried Plasma but there is just too much I don't need/want included. I'm looking for something simple/basic.
Does XFCE support fractional scaling?
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Gnome, gnome is basic. 
pacer And since XFCE is beta, what exactly does that mean?
It means the experience OOTB is not feature complete yet. There maybe some Xfce-related app stil missing. Or bugs. Not xfce bugs (there may be some) but the experience bugs (packaging related).
As always, you can make preliminary test using Live ISO or a VM before deciding which edition to install. Cheers!
XFCE appears to have fractional scaling options but in my testing inside a VM they did not appear to work, anything other than 1x results in a blank screen. Not sure what the issue is there.
If something is in "beta" it indicates it is not ready for general use. Users should expect it to have bugs / breakages / be rough around the edges, requiring more polish. It is a public testing period where the average user should stay away and more adventurous users can test it and report their findings. Since release several oversights have been reported and addressed but more work will be required before we are happy with its state and remove the beta label.
Harvey changed the title to Does XFCE support fractional scaling? .
I tried it using the Live USB and it was there but everything was slightly fuzzy. I believe this is consistent with what would be expected on an actual install.
Their idea of fractional scaling is under Appearance enable 2x scaling and then under Display shrink the output. It's a 2 step nightmare of a process.
I've had it work in VM before one time and not another, but on real hardware it works. Best to boot off a live image and try it first. Like @riffer said, it does make things fuzzy or blurry.
Fair enough. Not the biggest fan of gnome (man I sound so picky) but it'll have to do until Budgie/XFCE can catch up. BTW, I meant more so, is XFCE beta or beta-beta. Either way it's not for me right now. Is what it is.
Harvey XFCE appears to have fractional scaling options but in my testing inside a VM they did not appear to work, anything other than 1x results in a blank screen. Not sure what the issue is there.
I was surprise on the way it scales, NOT that 2x = 200%. If you want to scale up, select Custom, then "minus" to select a smaller value like 0.7
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pacer Not the biggest fan of gnome (man I sound so picky) but it'll have to do until Budgie/XFCE can catch up.
I didn't mention it before, because you asked about Xfce in particular, and it's not up to me to change your mind. But if you're game to try something that's better, consider KDE Plasma. It offers fractional scaling that's done extremely well. As is happens, 1.25% works best for my full HD laptop screen. It adjusts in 5% intervals - 105%, 110%, etc. on Wayland. On X11, the intervals are slightly larger - 6.something% - but the effect is similar.
And besides the well-done video scaling, Plasma also offers many other reasons to consider it instead of the lesser DEs.
A good friend of ours was a Budgie fan until he tried Plasma for that very reason. Budgie didn't offer the intermediate scaling that he needed for a display in a railroad museum.
I'm sorry if I sound like a Plasma cultist, but remember that having a lot of options doesn't mean that you have to use them all. You should see my plasma desktop, I barely customized anything.
In the end, you should use the desktop that better fits your needs, be it Gnome, Plasma, Budgie, or whatever.