[ILUG] flustered with fonts

[greg wm]

David Golden wrote:
> On Wednesday 11 July 2007, greg wm wrote:
>> i think i need a "default font lesson" or something.
>>
>> i've usually run thunderbird directly in X (centos 4 or fc5).
>> but when i run it inside Xvnc, it gets a different font, and nothing
>> fits in the columns anymore.
>>
>> i've usually run gnucash in Xvnc on centos4.  now i've launched
>> it (still) on my centos 4 box but displaying in an fc5 Xvnc, and here
>> again it's getting an all new font and nothing fits in the column
>> widths anymore.
> 
> (a)
> To maybe address the problem from a different angle - is this a 
> single-user scenario?  If so, then you could probably install e.g. 
> x11vnc on the centos 4 box and use it to propagate the "normal" local X 
> display on the centos4 box.  x11vnc works like vnc servers propagating  
> windows or mac preexisting desktops, but for a preexisting X desktop, 
> rather than the Xvnc special-server method.
> 
> (b) Are the fonts entirely different or just different sizes? If
> just different sizes, it could just be DPI issues.  What does
> "xdpyinfo" in the Xvnc instance and the usual X server return
> for the "resolution" parameter for  screen #0  ?

hi david,

a: nice idea, i do that sometimes when i want to see something i left 
up, but when the wife is at the keyboard, that doesn't work too well.

b: looked promising at first:
       X:     resolution:    81x81 dots per inch
       Xvnc:  resolution:    100x100 dots per inch

so i invoked Xvnc with -dpi 81, which made them the same, and this did 
have some effect, specifically, now, instead of getting a larger font, 
thunderbird in Xvnc gets a slightly smaller font, so now the columns 
don't overflow, rather they have extra space.  on the other hand, 
gnucash seems unaffected, and is still using a significantly larger 
font, which also seems to be as you say an entirely different font.

so are these font questions candidates for the ultrageek final runoff, 
or the perhaps the MIB datacenter wizard exam?

?:\
greg wm