[arch-general] Howto adjust font scaling in Arch? All fonts look a bit big and fat?
Listmates, I'm looking for a way to adjust the font size scaling (no not the control center font size) so all the fonts in my kde4 desktop look right. Basically, in Arch kde4 on my laptop, all fonts look 1pt too big. Case in point, on suse, I have all my desktop fonts set to 9pt, but with Arch, I have the size set at 8pt and they still look bigger than the suse fonts (same fonts of course, same subpixel hinting setting, etc...). Is there somewhere that some type of scaling is done that I can tweak to try and fix this? The effect of the larger scaling makes everthing from the kmail message list to the basket notepad fonts look cramped. Any thoughts? -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:43:31 -0500 "David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Listmates,
I'm looking for a way to adjust the font size scaling (no not the control center font size) so all the fonts in my kde4 desktop look right. Basically, in Arch kde4 on my laptop, all fonts look 1pt too big. Case in point, on suse, I have all my desktop fonts set to 9pt, but with Arch, I have the size set at 8pt and they still look bigger than the suse fonts (same fonts of course, same subpixel hinting setting, etc...).
Is there somewhere that some type of scaling is done that I can tweak to try and fix this? The effect of the larger scaling makes everthing from the kmail message list to the basket notepad fonts look cramped. Any thoughts?
Hi David, look into the following files in both Arch and Suse boxes: /etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources ~/.Xresources They may contain the following line: Xft.dpi: 100 (of course, 100 is just an example). You may want to adjust this number to fit the actual screen DPI. Cheers, Sergey
On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:42 PM, Sergey Manucharian<sergeym@rmico.com> wrote:
On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:43:31 -0500 "David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Listmates,
I'm looking for a way to adjust the font size scaling (no not the control center font size) so all the fonts in my kde4 desktop look right. Basically, in Arch kde4 on my laptop, all fonts look 1pt too big. Case in point, on suse, I have all my desktop fonts set to 9pt, but with Arch, I have the size set at 8pt and they still look bigger than the suse fonts (same fonts of course, same subpixel hinting setting, etc...).
Is there somewhere that some type of scaling is done that I can tweak to try and fix this? The effect of the larger scaling makes everthing from the kmail message list to the basket notepad fonts look cramped. Any thoughts?
Hi David,
look into the following files in both Arch and Suse boxes:
/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources ~/.Xresources
They may contain the following line:
Xft.dpi: 100
(of course, 100 is just an example).
You may want to adjust this number to fit the actual screen DPI.
Cheers, Sergey
afaik, gnome/kde (and maybe xfce and other desktop) provide a gui to configure DPI and set the DPI themselves. for example on gnome : xrdb -q | grep dpi Xft.dpi: 98 but I can edit that in gnome font gui. I am fairly sure kde has a similar setting, in its font panel as well.
On Monday 24 August 2009 03:46:19 pm Xavier wrote:
afaik, gnome/kde (and maybe xfce and other desktop) provide a gui to configure DPI and set the DPI themselves.
for example on gnome : xrdb -q | grep dpi Xft.dpi: 98
but I can edit that in gnome font gui. I am fairly sure kde has a similar setting, in its font panel as well.
Huh? Cool, I've learned way more than my "1 new thing" today. I have a general question about handling querying remote displays via ssh. Normally, with everything from nvidia-settings or anything that requires a display, you can't get anything of use because you don't have access to the display. Example: 17:23 archangel:~> xrdb -q xrdb: Can't open display '' Is there anyway to get around this limitation other than opening some type of remote desktop? Some way to query the remote display? While on this stray tangent -- is there anyway to make kde4 readable over vnc? IIRC, kde4 looks terrible when using vncserver because it is a native 32- bit color app and the vnc session doesn't handle it. Two questions: (1) is this right, if not, then why? and (2) is there any other remote desktop app that will handle kde4 better? Lastly, "xrdb -q | grep dpi" doesn't seem to be set on any of my Arch or suse boxes -- should it be? If so, to what? Thanks. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 18:34, David C. Rankin<drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Is there anyway to get around this limitation other than opening some type of remote desktop? Some way to query the remote display? Set the DISPLAY environment variable (Your main display is usually on :0.0)
Just append "-X" to your ssh command for X forwarding. You can add "-C" for compression too. 2009/8/25 Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com <daenyth%2Barch@gmail.com>>
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 18:34, David C. Rankin<drankinatty@suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
Is there anyway to get around this limitation other than opening
some type of
remote desktop? Some way to query the remote display? Set the DISPLAY environment variable (Your main display is usually on :0.0)
On Wednesday 26 August 2009 07:40:15 am Nicolas Bigaouette wrote:
Just append "-X" to your ssh command for X forwarding. You can add "-C" for compression too.
Now isn't that the coolest thing since sliced bread -- thanks. I can't believe I've nearly mastered vim over the past 10 years when all I really needed to do was ssh "-X" hostname and then type "kwrite". Think of all the empty space and all those uncluttered brain cells I would still have available for something else today ;-) Live and learn... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
On 08/25/2009 06:34 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
While on this stray tangent -- is there anyway to make kde4 readable over vnc? IIRC, kde4 looks terrible when using vncserver because it is a native 32- bit color app and the vnc session doesn't handle it. Two questions: (1) is this right, if not, then why? and (2) is there any other remote desktop app that will handle kde4 better?
Have you tried nx? http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/nxclient/ http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/freenx/ DR
On Wednesday 26 August 2009 10:25:31 am David Rosenstrauch wrote:
On 08/25/2009 06:34 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
While on this stray tangent -- is there anyway to make kde4 readable over vnc? IIRC, kde4 looks terrible when using vncserver because it is a native 32- bit color app and the vnc session doesn't handle it. Two questions: (1) is this right, if not, then why? and (2) is there any other remote desktop app that will handle kde4 better?
Have you tried nx?
http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/nxclient/ http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/freenx/
DR
DR, Yes, I've tried nx (I'll try it again to see if it solves the KDE4 problem). The reason that I've "tried it", but don't currently "use" it was that it offered no better performance than vncserver/vncviewer (poorer in some cases) and the certificate setup + a lingering bug (at least in the suse package) made it take longer to set it up on each host. Generally, I just use icewm or openbox across remote desktop connections, but I have a couple of boxes that shouldn't have a problem pushing several full kde4 sessions at once and that's what prompted the attempt to use kde4 via the remote connection. I'll give it another go and report back. Thanks. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
On 08/26/2009 01:22 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
DR,
Yes, I've tried nx (I'll try it again to see if it solves the KDE4 problem). The reason that I've "tried it", but don't currently "use" it was that it offered no better performance than vncserver/vncviewer (poorer in some cases) and the certificate setup + a lingering bug (at least in the suse package) made it take longer to set it up on each host.
Surprised to hear that. NX does take longer to set up, but I've found its performance to be way better than VNC. (YMMV, of course.) :-) DR
On Tue, 25 Aug 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Lastly, "xrdb -q | grep dpi" doesn't seem to be set on any of my Arch or suse boxes -- should it be? If so, to what? Thanks.
You can check the current DPI value with xdpyinfo: $ xdpyinfo | grep resolution ...while you are at it also check $ xdpyinfo | grep dimensions You can force some DPI value on X init with --dpi, or calculate and set proper DisplaySize (nvidia driver also has DPI option which takes precedence over DisplaySize) in xorg.conf (Monitor section of course). Recently you can also set DPI with xrandr (--dpi) on drivers which support it. Both Gnome and KDE font configuration managers would modify the X resource database (and ~/.Xdefaults or Xresources), which are used by all using fontconfig. The above mentioned DisplaySize... still helps with some legacy applications so if possible it's good to do both. Historically Windows used 96 DPI (http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2005/11/08/490490.aspx) and Linux distributions 75. Since Microsoft fonts (like verdana) are very popular for the web (others even on the Linux desktop), and we live in a Microsoft world... users would even up the value where appropriate. When you didn't provide a display size X would query the monitor and eventually fallback to 75 - which was very common some time ago. These days I guess you just have two very different monitors. -- Adrian C. (anrxc) | anrxc..sysphere.org | PGP ID: D20A0618 PGP FP: 02A5 628A D8EE 2A93 996E 929F D5CB 31B7 D20A 0618
At Montag 24 August 2009 21:43 David C. Rankin wrote:
Is there somewhere that some type of scaling is done that I can tweak
to try and fix this? The effect of the larger scaling makes everthing from the kmail message list to the basket notepad fonts look cramped. Any thoughts? Compare the content of /etc/fonts/conf.d incl. the file ~/.fonts.conf. Perhaps this gives you the answer but it is possible too that opensuse use another (and/or other patched) version of fontconfig. Good luck, Attila
David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates,
I'm looking for a way to adjust the font size scaling (no not the control center font size) so all the fonts in my kde4 desktop look right. Basically, in Arch kde4 on my laptop, all fonts look 1pt too big. Case in point, on suse, I have all my desktop fonts set to 9pt, but with Arch, I have the size set at 8pt and they still look bigger than the suse fonts (same fonts of course, same subpixel hinting setting, etc...).
Is there somewhere that some type of scaling is done that I can tweak to try and fix this? The effect of the larger scaling makes everthing from the kmail message list to the basket notepad fonts look cramped. Any thoughts?
This thread is useless without pics... Glenn
On Thursday 27 August 2009 03:00:14 am RedShift wrote:
This thread is useless without pics...
Glenn
Agreed. Here is a link to my suse desktop showing the kmail message list where the font scaling is the most noticeable. Two sizes of the same image are posted: 800x514 (90K) http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- suse-9pt-800.jpeg 1440x900 (270k) http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- suse-9pt.jpeg I'll swap driver and post the arch comparison later tonight. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
On Saturday 29 August 2009 01:14:06 am David C. Rankin wrote:
On Thursday 27 August 2009 03:00:14 am RedShift wrote:
This thread is useless without pics...
Glenn
Agreed.
Here is a link to my suse desktop showing the kmail message list where the font scaling is the most noticeable. Two sizes of the same image are posted:
800x514 (90K)
http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- suse-9pt-800.jpeg
1440x900 (270k)
http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- suse-9pt.jpeg
I'll swap driver and post the arch comparison later tonight.
OK, Here are the arch screenshot comparisons. NOTE - All the fonts in the arch kde control panel are set at "8pt" while the ones in the suse screenshots are set at "9pt" and the arch fonts (moost notable in the kmail folder list) loop larger than the same fonts in suse. The 9pt to 9pt comparison is huge. I haven't had time to exhaust all the suggestions yet, but I will and I'll report back. Meanwhile if anywone has any other ideas, please let me know. Thanks. (~90k) http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- Arch-8pt-800.jpeg (~270k) http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- Arch-8pt.jpeg -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
David C. Rankin wrote:
OK,
Here are the arch screenshot comparisons. NOTE - All the fonts in the arch kde control panel are set at "8pt" while the ones in the suse screenshots are set at "9pt" and the arch fonts (moost notable in the kmail folder list) loop larger than the same fonts in suse. The 9pt to 9pt comparison is huge. I haven't had time to exhaust all the suggestions yet, but I will and I'll report back. Meanwhile if anywone has any other ideas, please let me know. Thanks.
(~90k) http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- Arch-8pt-800.jpeg
(~270k) http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/bugs/kde4/font-scaling- Arch-8pt.jpeg
I missed the beginning of this thread, but did you set X DPI same on both Arch and Suse? Manne
participants (10)
-
Adrian C.
-
Attila
-
Daenyth Blank
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David C. Rankin
-
David Rosenstrauch
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Manne Merak
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Nicolas Bigaouette
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RedShift
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Sergey Manucharian
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Xavier