Font size problem #2

Michael Mather Michael.Mather at teksavvy.com
Sat Nov 15 06:52:08 CET 2008


I am running FDOM and I think that font sizes are being handled wrongly. Here 
is what I think is happening. Could someone who knows more about this correct 
any details that are wrong.

It seems that the standard font size in desktop computers is 12 points, which 
means that the characters are 1/6 inch high.

This is too big for the FR, which has only a small screen (in inches).

So the default font size has been set (somewhere, I wish I knew where) to 5.

This has the right effect on the character size, but I claim it is the wrong 
way to solve the problem.

This becomes apparent when you "ssh -Y" into the FR from a desktop computer. 
The default font then appears unreadably small.

The correct solution is to decide that "dpi" means "pixels per apparent inch." 
Because we look at the FR from much closer than we do a desktop screen, the 
dpi that we set in /etc/X11/xorg.conf should be somewhat less than the 
physical pixels per inch.

I estimate that I see a desktop screen from about 25 inches, and the FR from 
about 10 inches. So the FR should be set to about 110 dpi. This would have 
about the same effect as using a font size of 5 points.

Michael
-----------




More information about the community mailing list