[ILUG] Tip of the day - fonts and XFree

[Paul Jakma]

think fonts are ugly in XFree? Well you've probably got a bad X setup.

Firstly, check the order of your fonts in your FontPath in
XF86Config/xfs config. A lot of distributions have this setup badly.

The higher quality fontpaths should be listed before the lower quality
fonts. eg 100dpi should be *before* 75dpi, and both of these should be
before the 100dpi:unscaled 75dpi:unscaled..

eg 

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled

is optimal. See <xpath>/XF86Config or <xpath>fs/config if you use the
xfs font
server. (as RH6 does).

Secondly, tell X what dpi your monitor is, as most PC hardware can't
tell the X server, and so X uses the lowest possible (which affects
fonts used), eg if you use xdm/kdm edit <xpath>/xdm/Xservers and add
-dpi 100 to the line that describes your X server (should be the only
uncommented line). (procedure is similar for gdm, but look in
<xpath>/gdm).

now restart xfs if you use a font server, and restart X. fonts should
look different, esp in netscape and sites like microsoft.com and
dabs.com will finally be readable...

-paul jakma.

<xpath> == /etc/X11 on RH, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 or /usr/X11/lib/X11 on
others.

(above info culled from the fond deuglification mini-howto)