Hi,

I cannot get my fonts to look sharp on my desktop. I don't think I need better fonts or anything but I expect it to be the screen resolution that's causing this. I run SUSE 10.1 on this machine and I run exactly the same installation (including the .fonts.conf file) on my laptop and there the fonts look great (the only difference is that my desktop has a AMD 64 bit processor but that shouldn't matter, right?)! Like I said, I expect it to have something to do with the screen resolution but I don't know how or what.

My monitor is a Samsung Syncmaster 710v 17" LCD screen. From the manual I learned that I should set it up with 1280X1024 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. Did exactly that. Still it is no good. Does anybody know where I should be lookin?

I always adjust fonts in KDE via,

Control Centre->Appearance&Themes->Fonts and select something sans.

Dustimo is good and I find at least a 12 makes it sharp enough to read.

In Suse 10.1 you do not get an automatic install of proprietary drivers. You should install these drivers before messing with too many other settings. The driver will fix many problems. You need to get the drivers from their respective vendor sites.

Suse stopped offering the drivers as part of the online update (probably because the vendors want to drive you to their websites) starting with version 10.1. No real big loss considering the online update drivers had many quirks.

Which proprietary drivers should I get? I have used the driver from the disc that came with the monitor. Should I get a different one? Or do you mean for the video card?

I mean the video card. SuSe 10.1 will install the generic version of the video card driver by default (usually the nv version). You will have to retrieve and install the driver yourself.

Do you have an ATI or NVidia Driver or something diferent?

Getting your video card driver is the first step in getting your monitor to work properly. Often monitors will work just fine with the generic VESA or LCD drivers as most monitors are manufactured using generic specifications. Suse should have a driver specific to the Samsung monitor, but if it does not the generic LCD driver will work as long as you enter the proper resolution and refresh rates. It is possible that you may have to adjust the Geometry under Sax2, but it might be easier adjusting it on the monitor if SuSE is the only installed OS.

Long Story Short. Work on your video card driver first.

Ok, got it. I have an ATI Radeon chipset card. Where do I get the proper drivers for that thing? He, thanks for helping me out here. Really appreciate it!

I have downloaded and installed the ATI drivers and the SAX2 now shows that it uses the correct drivers. That's great. However, my fonts are still funny looking. What can be wrong next?

What do you mean your fonts are "funny". What are they doing?

Sorry about that. The fonts are blurred. They don't look well-defined but rather coarse edges (if you zoom in or enlarge the font).

had the same sort of issue and fixed it by changing the monitor SIZE setting - through Sax2 try: Hardware > Monitor > Display Size or something like that... check that it actually says

Suse 10 had detected my 17" monitor but was only running it as a 15" go figure...

-R

I think that's a common problem. SUSE 10.1 usually sees my 17 inch LCD display as a 21 inch and I have to manually change it.

Too bad guys. Wish it were true. I got the exact right dimensions/aspect ratio and refresh rates for my monitor (at least that is what SAX2 is telling me), but thanks for the input. I am open for any suggestions I can look for next!

Sorry to ask the obvious, but someone has to.

Did you try to correct it on the monitor? Some LCD monitors need adjustment in order to view properly. Strange that the fonts are blurred. I don't have an answer right now. I need to try to do some research and reproduce the problem. Might take me a couple of days.

Yes, tried that but doesn't really help. It just looks as if the resolution is not set correctly (but it is). I am really clueless as to what could be wrong with my setup.

Sometimes it helps if you stop using the driver specific to the monitor. I had that problem with a Compaq CRT and I switched to VESA. In your case try to set your monitor to LCD (Generic) and set your geometry and resolution via Sax2.

In any case did you download the TrueType fonts and install them? Have you run an online update since installing SuSE? Have you tried a diferent monitor? If you have the same problem with a diferent monitor you can assume that it is a bad install somehow. If you try the problem monitor on a diferent computer and it has the same problem it is then likely the monitor.

Look at you XORG.CONF file and see that the driver being used is the ATI and not the "nv" as "nv" is the generic driver. The ATI driver should have 3D graphics capability as the "nv" will not. You might check the SuSe and XORG bugzillas for problems similar to yours.

Sorry, I don't have an answer for you at this time. If I find something, I will let you know.

BTW: fonts will appear darker in SuSe than in other OSes such as Windows. Try to set your resolution to 1024x768 and see if that helps the fonts. I remember something in the bugzilla about some cards not setting properly with higher resolutions, but too early to jump to that conclusion.