Default font size in gnome

[Chris Cheney]

On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 13:55 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2009/02/27 10:09 (GMT-0600) Chris Cheney composed:
> 
> > On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 02:55 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
> 
> >> These may not be the best around, but even if they're off by 50%, the real
> >> world still  hasn't been anywhere near constant for the past 5 years:
> >> http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp
> >> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/February/res.php
> >> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/February/res.php
> >> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/February/res.php
> >> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2007/February/res.php
> >> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008/February/res.php
> >> http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2009/February/res.php
> 
> > The stats above do not include any 16:9 or 16:10 resolutions, so are of
> > questionable value. w3schools lumps it all into 'higher' but thecounter
> > doesn't seem to report those statistics at all. Unless thecounter is
> > lumping all widescreen into unknown, which they report at only 12%, if
> > that is the case I think their statistics are questionable. I'm sure
> > there are more than 12% people using widescreen, as it is pretty much
> > the only type of screen you have been able to get on laptops for at
> > least several years now.
> 
> I think it perfectly valid, if lacking in meaning, that w3schools shows more
> than 5/8 are obviously using either widescreens or older displays running
> higher than 1024 wide. Essentially, more than half of users are running
> something that's higher than 8-10 years ago, and higher than the 800x600 many
> web designers feel compelled to "support", and 1024 wide most of the rest
> think should be the widest necessary to "support".

Don't forget that what w3schools actually measures is data from
w3schools users, not web users at large. Meaning it primarily measures
web developers machines. Looking at the Firefox market share on
w3schools it shows up as 45.5%, however it is generally believed to be
much lower than that in the general population. Actually as of last
month the amount of Firefox users is higher than IE users on w3schools.
Since it is measuring web developers machines in many cases they may
have their machine set up for the resolution they are designing their
pages for instead of the actual native resolution of their monitor. That
would also explain why there was such a large number of 800x600 users,
up until a few years ago, given that the userbase is web developers.

> Several months ago I tried to inquire about the absence of widescreen at
> thecounter, but didn't get anywhere. Since they seem to provide 100%, I'm
> thinking they're going by width alone. That would put the major player
> 1280x800 laptops and 1280x720 HDTVs in the same box as the many 1280x1024
> displays still on desktops. 1600x1200 seems too low to include 1680x1050, so
> I'm guessing 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1080 HDTV & 1920x1200 make up the bulk
> of unknown.
> 
> There are also the users Microsoft and others mention that not everyone is
> using native LCD modes. That would put a of 1280x800 displays into 1024x600
> mode, lumping them in with the many 1024x768s still out in the wild.
> 
> I'd like to see obviously better stats somewhere, but the above are all I
> know about.