R devel - May 2003 - Size of x11 device

I've fairly recently changed my Linux desktop, and now use a XFree86 
server.  The default X11() window is rather small: it is supposed to be 
7" x 7".  However,

1) It is actually just over 5" x 5" and
2) 7" x 7" would be rather small on a 21" screen.

The reason for 1) is that DisplayWidthMM give 542mm, when it is really 
close to 400mm (and the correct monitor was specified).

So two questions.

a) does anyone know how to get the X server to give the correct size (on a
Matrox G550), or do we need (as on Windows) to have a means for the user
to override it?

b) should there be an option to set the default size of an X11 device?
(On Windows the default size depends on the screen size, since 7" would be
very large for a 10.4" LCD.)

The answers probably depend on how common a problem this is.

Brian

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

On Wed, 2003-05-21 at 09:33, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> I've fairly recently changed my Linux desktop, and now use a XFree86 
> server.  The default X11() window is rather small: it is supposed to be 
> 7" x 7".  However,
> 
> 1) It is actually just over 5" x 5" and
> 2) 7" x 7" would be rather small on a 21" screen.
> 
> The reason for 1) is that DisplayWidthMM give 542mm, when it is really 
> close to 400mm (and the correct monitor was specified).
> 
> So two questions.
> 
> a) does anyone know how to get the X server to give the correct size (on a
> Matrox G550), or do we need (as on Windows) to have a means for the user
> to override it?
> 
> b) should there be an option to set the default size of an X11 device?
> (On Windows the default size depends on the screen size, since 7"
would be
> very large for a 10.4" LCD.)
> 
> The answers probably depend on how common a problem this is.
> 
> Brian

Professor Ripley,

One thing that you may want to check is to see what the dpi setting is
for your display in the X11 setup.

On my Dell i8200 laptop, which has a 1600 x 1200 LCD panel, I have the
dpi set to 133 (305 mm x 229 mm), which is the actual measure.  If I set
this to some other figure then all graphics and fonts are scaled
accordingly.

On RH 9, this is set under System Settings -> Display -> Advanced.

This is also reflected in /etc/X11/XF86Config:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Dell 1600x1200 Laptop Display Panel"
	DisplaySize  305	229
	HorizSync    31.5 - 90.0
	VertRefresh  59.0 - 85.0
	Option	    "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "nvidia"
	VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
	BoardName   "NVIDIA GeForce 4 (generic)"
	VideoRam    65536
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor    "Monitor0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1600x1200" "1400x1050" "1280x1024"
"1280x960" "1152x864"
"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection


I hope that is of some help to you.  If I can provide any other
information, please let me know.

Best regards,

Marc Schwartz

On Wed, 21 May 2003, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> I've fairly recently changed my Linux desktop, and now use a XFree86 
> server.  The default X11() window is rather small: it is supposed to be 
> 7" x 7".  However,
> 
> 1) It is actually just over 5" x 5" and
> 2) 7" x 7" would be rather small on a 21" screen.
> 
> The reason for 1) is that DisplayWidthMM give 542mm, when it is really 
> close to 400mm (and the correct monitor was specified).
Thanks to Marc Schwartz and Simon Urbanek for help on examining this.  It
seems there is a bug in my setup: it is configured (correctly) for 400 x
300mm, 1600x1200 and hence 102dpi, but 1600 at 75dpi is 542mm.


Is anyone else unhappy with what the default 7" x 7" gives them?

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595