I was running SUSE 10.0 for a long time. At one point, I tried ubuntu
8.10, but went back to SUSE 10.0 because I couldn't take the huge fonts.
I'm committed to running Linux (I'm a software developer with 25 years
experience on UNIX and Linux platforms).

I've been able to shrink the icon size on the desk via the file browser,
change the other fonts, etc. - but running Google, and even this linuxquestions.org interface is an
experience that's as if I had 20/400 vision (I have 20/20-30).

How do I shrink this? Zooming in and out from the "view" pulldown sort of works, but it's temporary - plus,
doing that causes the resolution on the smaller print to get pretty blurry. Even the fonts and icons on
the toolbar are HUGE! SUSE didn't exhibit this behavior - but I'd rather be running ubuntu, since that's
what most of my potential employers are running.

It would seem a certainty this has come up before, but I haven't found an answer yet. Forgive my ignorance
if there's an easy solution I should have been able to find. I'm not picky; I'll use ANY font/configuration
combination that will give me smaller print, that isn't blurry.

Thanks for your help!

Edit->Preferences->Content and there find the font settings.

EDIT: View->Toolbars->Customize and tick "Use small icons" (or choose text only for no icons).

Ctrl and - (that's minus symbol)

Works for me :-)

Thanks for the suggestions - they help, but...

Two more things:

1. Now, the font gets fuzzy, and difficult to read. Isn't there a
way to sharpen it? Again, I haven't seen this happen on non-ubuntu
distros, so maybe there's more config I could/should do?

2. Firefox itself now looks better (i.e. toolbar icons are smaller,
etc.), but most pages I pull up still end up with HUGE font. If
I then ctrl - to zoom out, the font gets so fuzzy it's unreadable.
I didn't need to do the ctrl - thing on other distros. If merely
doing that would solve the problem, I could live with that...but
doing that results in unreadably fuzzy font.

I don't mind playing with things; I have been doing so. But the fun
and excitement of the relationship is going away

Are the fonts everywhere big (even not in web pages), or just inside pages viewed in Firefox?

Hi,

It finally occurred to me that this is likely a monitor resolution issue. The best it will
currently do via system settings is 800x600, which is pathetic. I've googled some for this
and have found some things where others have run into this, and the solution is to sudo some
things, etc. It seems, however, that some have run into issues doing so, and in some cases,
ended up worse off.

Obviously there is a solution (regarding being able to up the resolution), but I'd rather not
f things up while trying to find it.

I'm using a Samsung SyncMaster 931B monitor, and perhaps there are changes to make specific to that
monitor - but I'm really hoping for a solution (be it config changes via sudo, whatever) that
is vendor-independent, if at all possible. Or, uh, reasonably safe and sure if specific to
this monitor - that would be fine.

Any thoughts/ideas are appreciated !

Thanks

So the text is big because your monitor resolution is low?

Then, go to Appearance settings and change the font size.

That would also explain why small fonts look blurry. The key problem is 800x600 -- it must look horrible on a 19" monitor.

MTK358,

Perhaps you didn't read the earlier posts. I have been playing with fonts. When I decrease
their size, the letters become fuzzy.

This monitor is capable of far greater resolution than 800x600. It's a brand new fairly large
LCD. If I can increase the resolution in ubuntu to greater than 800x600, then I'll be able
to play with the fonts, and then still be able to see smaller font characters clearly.

My question is as in my previous post -- how can I go about increasing the resolution to greater
than 800x600, which is the current maximum that 9.10 ubuntu will allow? The details are in
my previous post.

Thanks

Install the right video drivers... ?

Have you seen this ubuntu 8.10 WIKI page about setting screen resolution?

What is your video adapter? MTK358's suggestion might lead to resolving this problem.

25 years of experience but misses the fact that the monitor isn't running at the correct resolution. LOL.

What pc are you using and what is the video card???

Well, 25 years has not made me infallible, yet

I'm pursuing the driver change.

I sincerely appreciate everyone's help - thanks!

I guess we 25+ years types have had more time to practice making mistakes!