Settng DPI on gdm and Sessions

[Felix Miata]

On 2009/05/19 16:40 (GMT-0600) Christopher A. Williams composed:

> On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 21:38 +0200, Kevin Kofler wrote:

>> Christopher A. Williams wrote:

>> > On one system I have, F11 gdm was automatically set to 120DPI, which
>> > looked absolutely hideous at 1440X900 resolution. On another system, it
>> > set itself automatically to 94DPI, which looked better, but not ideal.
>> > I'd really like the default on both to be 96DPI (or perhaps 100DPI).

>> It defaults to the actual correct DPI value for your screen (monitor),
>> unless your screen is broken and reports a nonsense DPI.

> ...Umm, no.

Umm, sorta. s/actual correct DPI/accurate DPI/ and he's absolutely right.
OTOH, "correct DPI" really is open to interpretation, because the
consequences of _not_ assuming, and applying, the "standard" 96 can be rather
miserable.

> My TP T400 laptop defaulted to 120DPI, and my desktop at home with a
> GeForce Series nVidia chipset and a 24" Acer LCD panel defaulted to
> 94DPI.

> Neither one of these was "optimal". At 120DPI (1440x900 native
> resolution), the T400 display looks absolutely crummy. Changing it to
> 96DPI made it crystal clear and sharp. Doing the same on my LCD panel on
> my desktop had exactly the same effect, albeit less so since it was
> pretty close already.

What do you mean by "looks"? Ugly fonts? Other manifestations of ugly, like
text that doesn't fit right in the alloted window or field space, or icons
disproportionately sized compared to accompanying text?

The problem is resolution independence is needed, but not available yet.
Achieving resolution independence is no small task, but forcing 96 on
everyone without their consent will serve to make the achievement more
difficult in several ways. Among them, fewer complaints mean less motivation
to do the work.

The numbers of really high DPI displays in actual use hasn't reached critical
mass yet. The developers who would do the work need to have this equipment in
order to facilitate doing it, so it's a bit of a chicken/egg problem.

In other ways it's just a matter of developers breaking old habits, not the
least of which is sizing objects without using px to specify any of those
object sizes.

> Regardless of all of that, there should always be a way to tell X what
> DPI you want anyway....you should be able
> to modify this to taste with a reasonable level of safety.

As long as resolution independence is not yet fully implemented, absolutely!
It used to be that you could, but currently, whether you can at all, and how
you do it, often depends on the chip and driver your gfxcard uses, in
addition to the subversion of the version of particular Xorg components. It's
a mess. :-(

> Who said the manufacturer's "correct" setting is
> the best for you, and that's assuming they use a standard way of
> specifying that? Clearly different manufacturers do this differently. As
> such there is no standard per se.

Again, try not to confuse discussion of accurate DPI with "correct" DPI. The
former is unequivocal, the latter, anything but.
-- 
"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man
keeps himself under control."	Proverbs 29:11 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/