Re: DPI, font size, and Debian

[Billy Biggs <vektor@dumbterm.net>]

Keith Packard (keithp@keithp.com):

> In the X world, we now have two resolutions -- the "real" resolution
> as reported by the X server screen size information, and the "font"
> resolution as used by Xft (the Xft.dpi resource).  I would like to see
> the "real" resolution be largely ignored by applications uninterested
> in aligning displayed pixels with physical objects and that the "font"
> resolution be used instead.
> 
> But, I don't know how to get there; it might be that we should set the
> X reported resolution to the nominal value and have some extra
> mechanism for reporting the physical monitor size.  This would fix all
> "normal" applications at the expense of breaking all "physical-based"
> applications. 

  I discussed this issue further and updated my proposal.  Given that
many people do believe that a measure of the "real" DPI is a useful
thing to keep around, and that all font rendering systems seem to honour
the Xft.dpi value, at least if we can get this set everywhere to a
standard nominal value of 96.0 I think we will be ahead:

    http://scanline.ca/dpi/

  This apparently is what Red Hat Linux is doing already.

  -Billy