font rendering wrong at correct screen resolution

[jonda]

About a year ago I experimented with 3 linux distros, including Fedora. All had their strengths and weaknesses, but all basically worked. I settled on Ubuntu, but eventually went back to Windows XP on my laptop.

This week I decided to try Fedora 9 and the most recent version of Ubuntu on the laptop again. Oddly both installed fine, but with really, really ugly fonts, kind of like looking at a badly dithered picture. The font size and spacial relationship appears to be fine, but the letters are not solid and clear. This problem did not exist in the previous versions I used of either Fedora or Ubuntu.

By coincidence I discovered that changing the screen resolution from 1280X800 (the native resolution of the laptop LCD) to 1024X768, the font issue was resolved. Problem is, not being the native screen resolution, the aspect ratio of pictures/graphics is off. I tried loading the KDE rather than Gnome desktop, but got the same result. The problem did not appear in the installation screens of Fedora, only after logging on after installation

Computer: Toshiba M-35 (laptop)
Video Card: NVidia GeForce Fx Go5200
Display: 1280X800 LCD

[brebs]

Look at DPI in /var/log/Xorg.0.log - use Google to see what the best x*y setting is for your hardware. You can also have Ubuntu's font rendering in Fedora (http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=186789).

[jonda]

The DPI is 96, 96. I did not have a great deal of luck looking up the DPI on the Internet, but it the closest I found was 101,101. I pretty much a newbie so I need a little more help here. I've tried changing it in the xorg.0.log file, but it always is 96,96 when I restart and open this file again. How do I actually go about changing this setting?

(I have exactly the same problem in Ubuntu. OpenSuse seems to be working okay, but I'm only using the LiveCD for OpenSuse.)

[brebs]

Don't bother changing the logfile, it gets recreated automatically ;)

Change /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[jonda]

Yeah, it seemed a little weird to me to change a log file also, but since I didn't have any other ideas I figured it at least couldn't do any harm. Didn't do any good either! Tonight when I get time I'll try the xorg.conf file. Thanks.

[jonda]

Well, after 45 minutes or so of poking around the 'Net I never did come up with good x*y values on this screen. I finally found some help in changing xorg.conf, but it wasn't complete enough. I tried it anyway, knowing full well I might kill my X windows. Sure enough, I did. No crisis as a reinstall at this point isn't a big problem (I could have fixed it in console mode, but it wasn't worth the bother). However, I decided to do OpenSuse instead, which, unlike Fedora 9 and the latest Ubuntu version, doesn't have the display problem on my laptop.

In my poking around in forums, it became evident to me that the latest version of the X Windows system has been partially broken. Hopefully this will not be long in the repair.

It has been said that one of the advantages of Linux is all the help available on the Web. There is lots, but my experience has almost always been that it is for earlier versions or other distros and nothing is ever quite the same on one's own installation. This has resulted in my very on again, off again relationship with Linux over the last several years. I'm just waiting to see what doesn't work in Suse on my computer. I even enjoy tinkering on this stuff, but it takes so much time that I end up having to give up for practical reasons.

Okay, personal rant over! Linux is definitely improving with age, but it's still mostly a hobby with me and will probably continue to be so while I have to think more about getting the underlying system functional than in producing something useful.

[brebs]

You don't need to reinstall! Just edit xorg.conf, and there's millions of examples available.
Section "Monitor"
...
Option "DPI" "96 x 96"
EndSection
Xorg is continually evolving, just like Linux. This is because operating systems are in their infancy - they can't even read our minds yet.

[jonda]

Guess I'm just too dumb for Linux.