A short time ago I upgraded a mandrake 9.0 box to 9.1. Since then java apps on that machine look strange (see http://www.mekenkamp.com/screenshot.gif for a screenshot, clickable url not allowed because I have less than 5 posts ). It seems font information is wrong in that too much empty space is inserted above and below all text.

Another machine that I also upgraded (9.0 -> 9.1) does not exhibit this behaviour.

I think this is an X problem, since all java (swing) apps have this problem, both locally run apps (sun jdk 1.4.1_03 as well as 1.4.2) as well as remote apps.

It's a bit lame to answer your own question, but if anyone else stumbles across, this might help him/her.

Execute the following commands as root:
cd $JDK_HOME/jre/lib
mv font.properties font.properties.original
cp font.properties.Redhat8.0 font.properties

That's it.