Andy Ball <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hello James! > > JAC> Probably both sets. Having both 75dpi and 100dpi fonts > > installed is usually what you want. > > I don't think it's really what I want. On newer workstations I can > run X at 100 DPI (say on a monitor with a 16" visible diagonal, at > 1,280 x 960 pixels), and I would want the 100 DPI fonts installed so > that text was scaled properly. > > On an older machine with a 'thirteen and one third inches' visible > diagonal (generally sold as "fifteen inch monitors" around here, I > could use 75 DPI fonts and an 800 x 600 pixel mode.
Hmm, but don't you want both available in case you have to swap your 16-inch monitor out for a 13.5-inch when the 16-inch blows out after accidentally pouring coffee into it? Seriously however, my point is that they don't take up *that* much room (particularly when compressed) except in disk-starved installations, and that it's better just to install both sets and keep one around for the few times you need it, and for the few abberant programs that specify 75 dpi explicitly in their XLFDs. And there are a few of those out there... $ du -sk /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi 15168 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi An extra 15MB of disk usage is not terribly much nowadays when even Linux distributions come on *three* bloody CDs. > JAC> $ XFree86 -version > > I'm trying to find XFree86 now, but I'm searching the whole > filesystem so it could take a while. Uh, it ought to be in /usr/X11R6/bin or somewhere similar. If not then try just 'X' instead. If you don't already have /usr/X11R6/bin in your $PATH then you're going to have problems... If you don't have either 'XFree86' or 'X' in /usr/X11R6/bin then there's something wrong with either your distribution or your installation. That's the main X server program. It'd better be there. > JAC> -dpi resolution > > sets the resolution of the screen, in dots per > > inch. To be used when the server cannot determine > > the screen size from the hardware. > > Excellent, that sounds very useful! Remember that you're sometimes better off letting the monitor and video card report this (see following section for details). For example, my monitor claims: (II) RADEON(0): I2C EDID Info: (II) RADEON(0): Manufacturer: VSC Model: 5151 Serial#: 12849 VSC is ViewSonic, btw. And the monitor is a "ViewSonic Graphics Series G810". (II) RADEON(0): Year: 2000 Week: 35 (II) RADEON(0): EDID Version: 1.2 (II) RADEON(0): Analog Display Input, Input Voltage Level: 0.700/0.300 V (II) RADEON(0): Signal levels configurable (II) RADEON(0): Sync: Separate Composite SyncOnGreenSerration on. V.Sync Puls e req. if CompSync or SyncOnGreen (II) RADEON(0): Max H-Image Size [cm]: horiz.: 40 vert.: 30 (II) RADEON(0): Gamma: 2.79 (II) RADEON(0): DPMS capabilities: StandBy Suspend Off; RGB/Color Display (II) RADEON(0): redX: 0.653 redY: 0.317 greenX: 0.281 greenY: 0.605 (II) RADEON(0): blueX: 0.142 blueY: 0.057 whiteX: 0.283 whiteY: 0.298 (II) RADEON(0): Supported VESA Video Modes: [... lots of noise about supported modes ...] (--) RADEON(0): DPI set to (101, 101) Which is why I see the following from xdpyinfo: dimensions: 1600x1200 pixels (402x302 millimeters) resolution: 101x101 dots per inch Now if I wanted to force the issue I probably would have said '-dpi 100'. Not 101 dpi. Why my monitor and card choose 101 dpi I have no idea, but they do. And I'd rather trust what the hardware thinks of itself than force it to do otherwise. Of course, if your monitor is a decent monitor and still claims that it can only do something ridiculous like 60 dpi or has delusions of grandeur and reports 300 dpi then you have every right to set it by hand. > JAC> Keep in mind that your X server usually guesses it, and does a > > pretty good job of guessing. > > I can believe that's true on other platforms, but the PC traditionally > didn't have a way for the monitor to tell the machine how large it > was physically: hence my interest in the -dpi option above. Traditionally, yes the IBM PC compatible platform didn't have a way of communicating from monitor to video card and graphics app. A modern PC-compatible SVGAish monitor however supports DDC, which allows the monitor to communicate details like that. DDC has been around for some while now, so it's likely that your monitor supports it unless your monitor is older than about five years or so. Does anyone recall exactly how old DDC is? I don't... XFree86 4.x writes out a /var/log/XFree86.$DISPLAY.log that will give you interesting information such as what your monitor returned for DDC info, as given in my example above. At least, XF86 writes that file on my installation, which is a CVS checkout. It probably ought to for yours too. 'james -- James A. Crippen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ,-./-. Anchorage, Alaska, Lambda Unlimited: Recursion 'R' Us | |/ | USA, 61.20939N, -149.767W Y = \f.(\x.f(xx)) (\x.f(xx)) | |\ | Earth, Sol System, Y(F) = F(Y(F)) \_,-_/ Milky Way. _______________________________________________ Fonts mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/fonts
