On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 05:52 (-0500), Felix Miata via tde-users wrote:
Dr. Nikolaus Klepp composed on 2026-02-04 10:47 (UTC+0100):
2026 Wed, 4 Feb 09:29:02 +0100
Thierry de Coulon scripsit:
<snip>
Anything less than 1024x768 is capable of producing some pretty awful looking fonts.
That is the bastes option, you might use "tderandrtray" or plain xrandr dor this.
Other option: set the DPI value to e.g. 200 in ~/.Xresources: Xft.dpi:200
Depending on distro, Xresources in /etc/X11/ somewhere should also work.
... or in .xsession: echo "Xft.dpi: 200"|xrdb -merge
Fonts tend to scale best from size to size when DPI is set to a multiple of 24, or at least, 12, so 192 or 168 or 216 or 204 may be better selections.
Felix,
do you have any authoritative reference for this that you would care to share? I've seen comments like this before, and every time I try to track an authoritative basis for this, I never find anything except unsubstantiated repetition of the same claim. (That is, if it gets repeated often enough it takes on a life of its own.)
I'd love to find out why this 24 (or 12 or whatever) is special.
For GTK apps use lxappereance to set that value.
Then there are some environment variables that might come in handy: QT_FONT_DPI=150 QT_SCALE_FACTOR=1.5
1.5 is actually equal to 144, not 150, as 96 is the 100% level foundation created by Windows95 on which fonts have since been based. 150 isn't evenly divisible by 12 or 24. It is by 6, which isn't as good for fonts.
For various reasons which aren't germane here, I want my fonts (and other things) to appear at (as close as possible to) the correct size on my screen. On my current laptop, that means using xrandr to set my X DPI to 142 and also setting Xft.dpi to 141.7. And although I'm a bit fussy about how text looks on my screen, I don't see anything wrong with my fonts because I have picked a weird size. YMMV.
Not all apps one might wish to use pay any attention to Xft.dpi or any envars, but do to X's own DPI, which can be set via DisplaySize in /etc/X11/xorg.con*, or using xrandr or any of the tools that employ xrandr, such as arandr. Simply xrandr will report available supported modes, then xrandr can be used to employ one's choice. On a 1920x1200 screen, likely available modes best supported due to same aspect ratio should include 1680x1050 and 1280x800. Arandr will build an xrandr script that can be used on session start, as xrandr changes don't impact whatever is already running when it's employed. Or one can build such script manually. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science.
This is another thing I don't get. I have my various systems set up to use the correct DPI (i.e., the screen's natural resolution), and things Just Work.
I honestly think people spend a lot of effort trying to work around the "big lie" (i.e., setting the X DPI value to 96).
Caveat: I do put GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2 for some programs that live in the fantasy world where all screens have 96 DPI, but most of the programs I use are fine when I set the screen DPI to the actual value. And firefox looks a bit better with GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.8. (I ask not why.)
Cheers. Jim