Fonts way too big!!

[Hammett]

Hi all!!!

I'm running Fluxbox 0.9.11 on a fresh Stage 3 installation of Gentoo, and fonts are quite big.
Before installing Gentoo I was a FC3 user, and fonts wheren't as big as now. It's not the terminal fonts, but the application ones, such as firefox, thunderbird, gimp and so on.

How can I configure X server to use smaller fonts??

I have configured xorg.conf through xorgconfig, and after this tweaking to add few features (basically get 3D accel).
The FontPath is:
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local/"

I have installed as well xfs server.

Thanks in advance

[lookinin]

In Firefox, Edit|Preferences|General|Fonts & Colors - set Display Resolution to 72, or 96, or whatever's comfortable for you. Thunderbird should be similar. For the rest of the GTK apps, create or edit your ~/.Xdefaults to contain the line:

Code: Select all

Xft.dpi: 72

[kaidon]

Just start X with something like:
startx -- -dpi 96

I've made an alias in my .bashrc:
alias startx='startx -- -dpi 96 -nolisten tcp -br'

Works for me

[kaidon]

Regarding fonts.

I've just put:
FontPath "unix/:-1"
in my xorg.conf.

And added all the font directories to /etc/X11/fs/config instead (the xfs config file this is).

As of my understanding this tells X to use the fontserver instead of dealing with fonts itself. Like this you don't have to maintain font-paths in 25 different places.

I'm not 100% shure if this is _the_ way to do it.
But again, works for me

[Hammett]

Thanks a lot for the quick answers. I'm using gmd to log in the system, so X server is already started. Where I should put that -dpi 96 ? Making the alias suggested, will work when gdm calls X server to startup?

[Hammett]

Regarding fonts.

I've just put:
FontPath "unix/:-1"
in my xorg.conf.

And added all the font directories to /etc/X11/fs/config instead (the xfs config file this is).

As of my understanding this tells X to use the fontserver instead of dealing with fonts itself. Like this you don't have to maintain font-paths in 25 different places.

I'm not 100% shure if this is _the_ way to do it.
But again, works for me

I have tried to use the font server (unix/: 7100), but then X crashes saying it cannot load fixed font. The only solution (I found so far) is to put manually the fontdirs or not to put any.

[lookinin]

Thanks a lot for the quick answers. I'm using gmd to log in the system, so X server is already started. Where I should put that -dpi 96 ? Making the alias suggested, will work when gdm calls X server to startup?

Using that method, I think that gdm uses xdm's config file /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers. I use entrance, so I'm not positive. It should say something like:

Code: Select all

:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -dpi 96

[kaidon]

I don't use a graphical login myself, so I can't tell you from experience.
Here's what google had to say about it:
http://www.mozilla.org/unix/dpi.html

Check out the section "Using Redhat and gdm".

[kaidon]

I have tried to use the font server (unix/: 7100), but then X crashes saying it cannot load fixed font. The only solution (I found so far) is to put manually the fontdirs or not to put any.

The unix/:XXX in xorg.conf has to match the settings in /etc/conf.d/xfs.
Mine has XFS_PORT="-1" in it, therefore I put FontPath "unix/:-1" in xorg.conf.

Also added xfs to the default run-level (rc-update add xfs default).

[Hammett]

OK, i didn't know I had to parse port with Xorg...I've always been told that port was 7100. I did the rc-update thing

It is better to have a font server? Or let Xorg manage them by itself?

@Kaidon:

Thanks for the link, I followed it and it worked perfectly ^_^
Many thanks, I owe you one

[kaidon]

I believe 7100 is the default tcp port for a font-server. -1 tell's it to use a socket instead of the network, which is both faster and more secure.

Can't tell you pros or cons on using the font-server. Personally I just hated having the same information (fontpaths) in several different places.

[zecg]

All of the apps you stated use GTK2. Try editing (or making, if there is none) your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 (that's your user's home dir) a line such as:

Code: Select all

gtk-font-name = "Tahoma 8"

Of course, that is if you do have Tahoma. If not, substitute with a font you do have.