Solved -- Font sizes of Gnome-Gtk apps in KDE

jlinkels · 12-03-2005, 04:06 PM

Ok, I know there are about a zillion minus one threads about this subject. Surprisingly enough the thread where I found the closest solution and I contributed to with another problem description seems to have disappeared during the site upgrade. Therefore I post this as a new thread.

This is (was) the problem:

I use KDE. Fonts of Gnome applications looked WAY too large. After I took the appropriate measures (see below) Gnome app fonts looked OK, but all KDE fonts were changed and way too small. As soon as I tried to adjust them using KDE Control Center, SOME fonts would change, others not. For example, either the menu bars in the applications were too tiny. When I changed that to a normal size, the menu of the KDE panel got fonts which were gigantic. No single solution at all. The problem here is the screen resolution which is reported by X when a QT app asks for it to calculate the number of pixels for a character.

So this is the solution:

a. Install gtk2-engines-gtk-qt
b. Check if you have /usr/bin/gnome-settings-daemon available on your system. If not, install the capplets package. In a terminal run
gnome-settings-daemon &
c. In KDE Control Center, adjust "GTK fonts and styles" in "Appearance & Themes" to "Use my KDE style" and "Use my KDE fonts"
d. Edit /etc/kde3/kdm/Xservers and make sure on the first line "-dpi 75" is added, like:
:0 local@tty1 /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp -dpi 75

If you omit step (d), you'll encounter the problem I had with the inconsistent fonts in KDE, as soon as you start gnome-settings-daemon.

It is recommended to run gnome-settings-daemon automatically at startup of KDE. To do this, create a script with this contents:

#! /bin/bash
gnome-settings-daemon &

Chmod it to ugo+x and copy it to ~/.kde/Autostart

The problem I had might have been caused by that I do not run my monitor in standard resolution, but in 1152x864. I am satified with my fonts now.

The only problem remaining is that the keyboard delay/rate is wrong after startup. I have to go into KDE Control Centre and explicitly apply the existing setting again.

jlinkels

Debian Stable/Testing
KDE 3.3
Xorg
nvidia driver on GForce4
Samsung 753DFX
Kernel 2.6.8-2-K7

jlinkels · 12-03-2005, 04:32 PM

Solved this one as well. Add these lines to the previously mentioned script file in ~/.kde/Autostart. The complete script becomes:

#! /bin/bash
gnome-settings-daemon &
sleep 10
xset r rate 250 30

The sleep 10 seems to be necessary to guarantee that xset runs after gnome-settings-daemon completed startup. Maybe a lower value could work as well.

the syntax for setting the keyboard rate with xset is:

xset r <delay ms> <repeat rate>

jlinkels

jlinkels · 12-04-2005, 09:11 AM

There are funnier things than replying to your own thread all the time...

After I completed what I described above on my desktop machine (which I use as guinee pig) I tried the same on my laptop. It has basically the same installation, but since I use a Stable installation with traces of Testing on both machines, some packages are from a different distribution.

I have checked and I know that gtk2-engines-gtk-qt and gnome-settings-daemon are the same versions. I am not sure about all KDE and Gnome packages.

I did the same steps as in post #1, but as soon as I have gnome-settings-deamon running, no Gtk application would start again. If just briefly flashes the window outlines, and then dies. I have not been able to find a trace in any of the log files (~/.xsession-errors, Xorg.0.log, messages, syslog)

The good news is that on the laptop everything works as well, without gnome-settings-daemon. Very nice and uniform fonts throughout all applications. Never had it like this before!

Another remark: now I have all the fonts like I want them, it is striking how much better the quality of my CRT is over the LCD screen of the laptop (HP NC6230). Over any LCD screen as a matter of fact. Until now I have refused to switch to LCD on all of my desktops, exactly for this reason. Fonts look harsh and ragged. I can assure that this is no Linux problem.If you look at the fonts with a magnifying glass, you see clearly that fonts are anti-aliased. The CRT simply is much more pleasant to the eye due to the non-perfect technology (no single dots which are turned on and off and match exactly the pixel output of the VGA controller).

jlinkels

jlinkels · 12-05-2005, 07:51 PM

On my desktop with gnome-settings-daemon running I noticed that sometime my mouse cursor disappeared after the screen came back from the screen saver.

Then I removed gnome-settings-daemon, and everything stayed fine, even after a restart of X. The mouse did not disappear anymore.

While I was sure that before I did not get the correct fonts without gnome-settings-daemon running.

I can assume that KDE is now used to these fonts and doesn't need gnome-settings-daemon anymore, but uhm that is kinda hard to believe.

I am still very happy with the balanced look all my fonts now have in Linux, bit on the 1152x864 desktop screen and the 1500x1050 laptop screen.

jlinkels