Red Hat 7.1: Terrible Fonts

[beforewisdom]

Hi;

I'm a window user who decided to give linux a try.
I installed Red Hat 7.1 on my machine a week ago.

I am very impressed.


My only problem is with the default fonts. They look terrible and in
several applications they make the text very hard to read, particularly in
Netscape.

I managed to get some true type fonts installed to the point where the
fonts are listed as options in the menus of various applications.

Its a slight improvement, but the fonts look like they were written with a
leaky pen.

I have been trying to get help on the internet but it has been very
frustrating.


Many documents are out of date, use abbreviations without explanations,
and assume the reader has a conceptual understanding of the internal
operations of linux.

For example, in several places I was told to check a file called
"XF86Config(-4)", but I have no file with a name spelled like that on my
computer.

If anyone can answer that, clue me in on other things I need to try to get
decent fonts, and explain it in a way that someone who doesn't already
know how to solve the problem can understand the explanation I would be
grateful.


I am running Red Hat 7.1, KDE 2.1.1, xserver 4003.

Steve

[JimH]

Hi,

Yep, netscape fonts are pretty bad. For netscape font setting I use:

variable width font: Helvetica (Adobe) size 12
fixed width font: Courier (Adobe) size 12

Doing the following will help some:

Create a text file in your home directory called .Xresources
Note the period ----------------------^

open the filemanager, right click, create new, text file
name is .Xresources

open the .Xresources file and add these three lines, save the changes

Netscape*documentFonts.sizeIncrement: 20
Netscape*documentFonts.xResolution*iso-8859-1: 100
Netscape*documentFonts.yResolution*iso-8859-1: 100

You will have to logout/login for these changes to take effect.
If you want even larger fonts you can change the 100.

Like you said alot of the documentation out there is outdated and not RedHat specific. It's possible some of the changes you made won't work on a RedHat system. I would have to know more about exactly what you tried. You might consider upgrading the version of Mozilla that came with RH 7.1 and use it instead of netscape. The Mozilla >=0.9.0 have been working great. You can download the latest version at:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/r..._7x_RPMS/i386/

You don't have to download all the rpms, just the ones to upgrade what you have now. Too see what Mozilla rpms are on your system now, type this at any console prompt:

$rpm -qa | grep mozilla

After you download the new rpms, to install them change to the directory where the new rpms are then as the root user:

$rpm -Fvh mozilla*.rpm

If you haven't already you might look at this article on using RPM
http://www.getlinuxonline.com/omp/distro/rpm.htm

KDE 2.1.1 apps doesn't display some fonts correctly kmail and knode and good for this. In kmail, from the menu, Message/Set encoding, changing it from auto to the font setting you use helps alot. Your probably using ISO 8859-1. You can do the same thing with knode.

The upcoming RedHat 7.2 is supposed to have even better support for truetype fonts. ;D

Jim H

[beforewisdom]

Thanks.

Fixing mozilla is still ahead of me. I am saving this message though.

I still need to resolve the font issue for all of my applications in Red Hat 7.1/kde 2.1.1/xserver 4003.

Basically the fonts will look like they were made with a leaky pen, or they been squashed horizontally.

I managed to import ms true type fonts so that they show up as options in the menus of various apps.

I guess I need to do something else to get rid of the leaky pen and squished sentence look.

Any ideas?

[JimH]

Strange. Regardless of what font, including the ms fonts, you use they all have a "squashed" look? I've never seen anyone describe that type of problem. I wonder if this might be a problem with XFree86 and/or KDE, and your video card. What video card do you have?

Jim H

[beforewisdom]

I have a 3 year old ( the original from when I bought my box - a gateway ) nVidia Video Card

I ran SANDRA on my box. You can read a summary of what my system has here:
http://www.geocities.com/beforewisdo...emSummary.html

[JimH]

Ok, so right now you are running the STB Velocity 128 and NEC MultiSync LCD1530V? I suspect the LCD display might be the problem here. When you setup your video card and monitor with Xconfigurator did it correctly identify the monitor? Did you try a different screen resolution, just too see if it made any difference?

[beforewisdom]

STB Velocity 128........I think is only the name of the driver. The monitor is brand new ( flat panel ).

My resoloution is set at 1024 X 768 looks good in both windows and linux. the monitor also pops up little notes that this is its preferred resoloution.

I didn't set up my video card. During the install of Red Hat 7.1 I just clicked the button to let the Red Hat install do what it thought was best.

How do I change screen resoloution in linux ( Red hat 7.1, kde 2.1.1 )? I don't know if I can go higher, but I will try going up and down as much as I can and see what happens.

================================================== =====
Ok, so right now you are running the STB Velocity 128 and NEC MultiSync LCD1530V? I suspect the LCD display might be the problem here. When you setup your video card and monitor with Xconfigurator did it correctly identify the monitor? Did you try a different screen resolution, just too see if it made any difference?

[paradox]

I bet LCD is your problem......you have to set up your monitor different with LCD...but I don't know how...I am not priveleged(read: rich) enough to own a LCD monitor! ;D

Aragorn

[JimH]

Hmmm, sounds like both your monitor and video card were detected properly. I was thinking maybe RH on the install set the screen resolution too high. Alot of time it defaults too 1280 x 1024. You can rerun the setup by typing: Xconfigurator at any console prompt. You must be the root user. When you run Xconfigurator it will display what it detects your video card and monitor, if it isn't right you can set them up manually. It will give you a choice to set the screen resolution, select one setting only and try it. This is strange I haven't seen anyone complaining about any font problems on LCD displays. Try running the setup again and see what happens. Might also try posting this too RedHat's Xfree86 mailing list and see if Mike Harris, current redhat XFree86 maintainer, has an idea.

https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/l...o/xfree86-list

Jim H

[beforewisdom]

I'll look into your tip.

Don't feel jealous about the monitor.

I got it on sale for $400 and it is attached to a 3 year old Gateway running a PII 333mhz chip, with 191 mb ram. A respectable machine, but nothing compared to the monsters they have out now.

The monitor was my first splurge after two years of living on 1 pay check a month for 2 years to pay off my debts.

======================
I bet LCD is your problem......you have to set up your monitor different with LCD...but I don't know how...I am not priveleged(read: rich) enough to own a LCD monitor! <http://www.getlinuxonline.com/board/DImages/grin.gif>

Aragorn