Getting Fonts to look like...

Question

Hello.
Im using my x7 @ 1152x864. Same resolution under Windows. Im not sure if the dpi settings are correct. xdpyinfo says 81 dpi are used. But i have no clue what dpi are used under windows.
I like unantialiased fonts and i use a crt.
Small fonts are really hard to read.
Thats what i get under linux:
[URL=http://img325.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dpilinux4qc.png][/URL]
And this under win:
[URL=http://img272.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dpiwin9kb.jpg][/URL]
The Screenshot is not by me but i hope this makes no difference. He uses a default installation and he set the resolution to 1152x864 for making the screenshot.
The browser is different. But i think it looks same under firefox.
So i red the xorgfonts topic in wiki. But i still dont know what to do to get such fonts.
What do i need to do to get the fonts look the same as under Windows? Readable small fonts, un-antialiased and without bugs like letters stacked upon each other.
And how would that look under Mac? I heard that Typographs like Macs. But what would a Typograph prefer? How do fonts render under a Mac?

Answer 1

Yes, windows is using 96 dpi as default and it ignores the real dpi of your screen.
You can force xorg to always use 96 dpi too. For example start it with: startx -- -dpi 96.
If you really want to make it the linux way do this:
1. Take the ruller and measure your screen size X and Y in mm.
For example my screen size in mm (the visible part) is 331 x 207 (don't trust xorg ddc on this, measure it yourself). 1 inch = 25.4 mm. So it's 13,031496 inches x 8,1496063 inches. My screen resolution is 1280 x 800 (notebook lcd) which gives 98,22 dpi x 98,16 dpi ~ 98x98 dpi. Put this line in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the Monitor section:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "NotebookLCD"
... other parameters
DisplaySize 331 207
... other parameters
EndSection
When you restart xorg you should find in the logs something like this:
(**) I810(0): Virtual size is 1280x800 (pitch 2048)
(**) I810(0): *Built-in mode "1280x800"
(**) I810(0): Display dimensions: (331, 207) mm
(WW) I810(0): Probed monitor is 430x260 mm, using Displaysize 331x207 mm
(**) I810(0): DPI set to (98, 98)
You can cheat a little to have square dpi - I mean 98 x 98 is usually better than 98 x 90 or something like this.
2. In /etc/fonts/local.conf put these lines:
<match target="pattern" >
<edit mode="assign" name="dpi" >
<double>98</double>
</edit>
</match>
3. In firefox menu edit/preferences content tab, advanced button (next to Default font size) set Display resolution = System setting.
The font size should be better now. You can of course change the minimum font size in firefox or opera if you want.
2006-06-13 - I've noticed that because I enabled HTML in this post phpbb stripped some of the code in 2 - it removed mode, name and target. It should be fine now.