Duncan wrote:
"Mark Haney" <[email protected]> posted
[email protected], excerpted below, on Wed, 31 Dec 2008
07:03:39 -0500:
I updated the xf86-ati-driver package late yesterday and now my fonts
are all screwed up. My text is really big compared to what it was
before. I thought maybe xorg.conf was re-written but it looks fine to
me. As it is, my system is usable but not comfortably so. So what the
devil have I done to it?
Knowing the version now... and in cases like this, the version before...
often helps...
I was running 6.6.3 and then updated to 6.8.0-r1. I'm not running
~amd64. I'm not running any Xorg overlays, just plain jane Xorg. This
system is a laptop, so the config has been set (and working) for well
over 2 years now.
FWIW, xf86-video-ati-6.9.0 here, on ~amd64, tho I've not updated in a few
days so it's possible there's an update I've not seen yet if you're
running ~amd64. Of course, if you're running the xorg overlay, who
knows, tho Beso mentioned running it at one point if I'm not mistaken.
As to the problem, what sort of monitor(s) are you running and do you
have its dimensions set? In xorg log (Xorg.0.log), does the monitor
detection list the dimensions and are they accurate?
The dimensions look like they are set correctly (1280x800):
(II) RADEON(0): Supported additional Video Mode:
(II) RADEON(0): clock: 68.9 MHz Image Size: 331 x 207 mm
(II) RADEON(0): h_active: 1280 h_sync: 1296 h_sync_end 1344
h_blank_end 1408 h_border: 0
(II) RADEON(0): v_active: 800 v_sync: 801 v_sync_end 804 v_blanking:
816 v_border: 0
I had to setup a 'Modeline' that corresponded to the correct dimension
of my monitor back when I first setup gentoo on this laptop.
The reason I ask is that over the years, I've discovered that various X
component updates (I never pinned down which ones) can have radically
different ways of calculating the defaults, and that the only way to
reliably keep it the same was to put the screen measurements in
xorg.conf. Since then, the drivers have supposedly gotten better at
detecting it correctly from ddc, but at least with dual monitors and the
video-ati driver mentioned above, xorg can still get it wrong (and does
here, trying to apply the dimensions from just one to the combination of
both, so the size is wildly distorted in one direction).
One of the problems recently seems to be the RandR support, which is
supposed to be better at "Plug-n-pray" live detection and adjustment, but
which at least with the video-ati radeon driver on reasonably stable
multi-monitor desktop system configs is still lacking features and
version to version stability compared to the previous merged-framebuffer
solution.
So anyway, if you've not configured, either thru your desktop environment
or xorg.conf, a standard dpi or display size (in mm not pixels), do so.
It should go a long way to ending font size changes based on changeable
xorg defaults. If your display config is static enough to configure it
in xorg, the setting to configure is DisplaySize, in the Monitor section
in newer RandR style configs (they put it there so you could specify them
per monitor, since monitors are supposed to be plug-n-pray with RandR,
now), I forgot where in old configs, but see the xorg.conf manpage. Or
in KDE 3.5.10, you can set DPI in the main font config dialog. YMMV in
other KDE versions or other DEs.
I don't think I've setup a standard DPI or display size in my xorg.conf
file. I don't recall doing so and I"ve not touched that config file in
over a year. How/where do I do that in xorg.conf?
--
Frustra laborant quotquot se calculationibus fatigant pro inventione
quadraturae circuli
Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415
Call (866) ERC-7110 for after hours support
