Making onscreen fonts read-able[was:New monitor, how to change screen resolution?]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 9:20 PM, Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@wowway.com> wrote:

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:30:40 -0400 (EDT), James Stuckey wrote:
> Stephen Powell wrote:
>> You didn't provide much information, James. I'm afraid that there's no
>> "one size fits all" answer to that question. It depends on a lot of
>> things.
>> Please provide the following information:
>>
>> (1) The make and model of your computer
>> (2) The make and model of your video card
>> (3) The make and model of your monitor
>> (4) The type of monitor (CRT, LCD, etc.)
>> (5) The type of video connection used (digital, analog, etc.)
>> (6) The contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, if it exists
>> (7) The contents of /var/log/Xorg.0.log
>> (8) Which release of Debian you are running (Lenny, Squeeze, Sid, etc)
>

> (1) I'm on AMD64/Asus motherboard P5Q
> (2) NVIDIA 9800GT
> (3) ASUS VH242H
> (4) LCD
> (5) Digital connection, not DVI

Digital connection, but not DVI? Hmm. This may be out of my league. I don't
have any experience with that.

> (6)
> Section "ServerLayout"
> Identifier "X.org Configured"
> Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
> InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
> InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Files"
> ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
> FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
> FontPath "built-ins"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Module"
> Load "record"
> Load "extmod"
> Load "glx"
> Load "dri"
> Load "dbe"
> Load "dri2"
> EndSection
>
> Section "InputDevice"
> Identifier "Keyboard0"
> Driver "kbd"
> EndSection
>
> Section "InputDevice"
> Identifier "Mouse0"
> Driver "mouse"
> Option "Protocol" "auto"
> Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
> Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Monitor"
> Identifier "Monitor0"
> VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
> ModelName "Monitor Model"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Device"
> ### Available Driver options are:-
> ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
> ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
> ### [arg]: arg optional
> #Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
> #Option "HWcursor" # [<bool>]
> #Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
> #Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
> #Option "UseFBDev" # [<bool>]
> #Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
> #Option "VideoKey" # <i>
> #Option "FlatPanel" # [<bool>]
> #Option "FPDither" # [<bool>]
> #Option "CrtcNumber" # <i>
> #Option "FPScale" # [<bool>]
> #Option "FPTweak" # <i>
> #Option "DualHead" # [<bool>]
> Identifier "Card0"
> Driver "nvidia"
> VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
> BoardName "G92 [GeForce 9800 GT]"
> BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Screen0"
> Device "Card0"
> Monitor "Monitor0"
> SubSection "Display"
> Viewport 0 0
> Depth 1
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Viewport 0 0
> Depth 4
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Viewport 0 0
> Depth 8
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Viewport 0 0
> Depth 15
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Viewport 0 0
> Depth 16
> EndSubSection
> SubSection "Display"
> Viewport 0 0
> Depth 24
> EndSubSection
> EndSection

It's the proprietary nvidia driver! Oh no! ;-)

My first question is, how did you come up with this config file?
Did you create it yourself by hand? Did you run a script to create it?
Did the proprietary nvidia driver installation program create it for you?
It seems way over-specified to me.
>
> (7)
> ...
> (++) using VT number 8

This is off topic, but did you notice that the X server initialized itself
on VT number 8 instead of VT number 7? That means, for example, that if
you are on virtual console number 1 (text mode) and wish to switch to
the X server, you will need to use Ctrl+Alt+F8 instead of the usual
Ctrl+Alt+F7. I've noticed this bug too lately. In fact, it's
possible that you have have two copies of the X server running.
One on VT 7 and one on VT 8. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
>
> ...

> (II) Apr 29 19:58:59 NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be 1920 x
> 1080

Is that the resolution you are trying to obtain: 1920x1080? It's not a
standard 4:3 aspect ratio, so it's most likely probed from the monitor.
>
> ...

> (8) Squeeze with Sid nvidia drivers

--
.''`. Stephen Powell
: :' :
`. `'`
`-

I don't recall how the config file was made. The resolution I want is 1920x1080. Restarting X gave me this resolution. Now my fonts on screen (like on the menu bar in iceweasel/icedove, for example) aren't too easy to read. They just don't look right. How do I fix that?