Gutsy Kubuntu font problems

[Anand Buddhdev]

On Friday 19 October 2007 14:11, Paul S wrote:

> Anand Buddhdev said the following on 10/19/2007 06:33 AM:
> > I read that in Gutsy, the DPI from the X server is now used to render
> > fonts, instead of the fixed default of 96. I therefore attempted to
> > fix the DPI by applying the following settings in xorg.conf
>
> No problem here.  I changed feisty to use my actual dpi of 86x86, so I
> have the same font appearance after upgrading.  I don't know why you
> wouldn't use the designed dpi of your monitor?

If the default appearance of the fonts on Feisty hadn't been good, I might 
have had reason to adjust the DPI and play around with things. However, 
with a default install of Feisty, the fonts were perfect. More 
importantly, selecting fonts sizes of 9, then 10 and 11 made the fonts 
grow in size in a proportional way.

With Gutsy, the jump in size between 10 and 11 is huge. I can't use 10, 
because it's too small, and 11 is too big. What I really want is the size 
in-between, which I had with Feisty.

> Also, are you running kubuntu apps in gnome?  That could be part of the
> problem of the difference you see between gtk and kde apps.  I run kde
> and have gtk apps run in it.  So, kcontrol can adjust the gtk fonts to
> use the same as kde apps.

I run a KDE desktop, with mostly KDE apps. The exception is Firefox. In 
Feisty, I used Kcontrol to set the style and fonts for GTK apps, and 
Firefox looked the same as the other KDE apps (same font size). 
Everything was uniform.

In Gutsy, it's broken (from my viewpoint at least). The increase in size 
from point size 10 to 11 is abnormal, and the fonts in Firefox don't look 
like those in KDE apps (on a KDE desktop). I have tried with the 
system-determined DPI (85x86), manually setting the DPI to 96x96, and 
using the "force fonts to 96 dpi" setting in KDE, without any success.

The only exception is when I switch OFF the "force fonts to 96 dpi" in 
kcontrol. After that, if I start any KDE apps, they show a properly 
scaled font of size 11, but the rest of the desktop shows the wrong fonts 
(too small for size 10, and too big for size 11).

I came to Ubuntu because I was impressed by how it all just worked, and I 
would not have to spend time fixing the basics such as the fonts. Now I'm 
rather disappointed that they have gone and broken what used to work so 
well. In fact, I am writing this message from my desktop at work, which 
was setup by the IT department. It's Kubuntu Dapper Drake (6.10) and the 
fonts on it are very nice (same as what I had on my Feisty desktop at 
home). This screen has a resolution of 85x83 dpi (as reported by 
xdpyinfo), but I guess KDE is displaying the fonts at a szie of 96 dpi.

-- 
Anand