Mandriva looks crummy on my laptop [solved]

[Guest clocks]

So I'm a first time Linux user. I installed Mandriva 2008 on my HP dv2415nr. After a few days I finally got the wireless internet working on it. I only use it for email and internet, but there are two issues that are keep me logging in to vista instead.

 

First, the text looks terrible in Firefox. It's boxy and jagged, and the text is a different size on every page I load. I've tried turning on AA, different fonts, as well as forcing the DPI and nothing fixes it. Which makes web browsing is just a lot easier on the eyes in vista right now. Any way to resolve this?

 

Secondly the KDE environment seems to take up a lot more space on my tiny screen. The top bar in programs, the bottom toolbar, all feel much larger than they do in vista. I've tried all the installed themes with no luck. It's just painful to be viewing a 14" screen and have so much of it wasted in toolbars. Any suggestions on this?

[tyme]

Right click on the toolbars and you should me able to modify their size or, if you'd prefer, remove any you don't want.

 

As far as the crappy fonts in Firefox, this could be caused by several issues. My first suggestion would be to install the MS fonts - if you have a Windows install this should be simple, just go into Mandriva Control Center under fonts and you should be able to import them from windows (I know this was available in previous Mandriva versions, it may not be in 2008). Another is to go into Firefox's settings (Tools -> Options -> Content) and change the default font & size to something more easy on the eyes. If either of these suggestions don't resolve your issue, let us know and we'll see what other options there are.

[adamw]

There seems to be an obvious possibility tyme is overlooking: the screen resolution's wrong.

 

Go to the Mandriva Control Center ('Configure your computer'), run the graphics card configuration tool, and check what resolution is being used. Is it the correct one for your laptop? Laptop screens (all LCD screens) have a 'native resolution', and you *really* want to use that resolution. Using any other resolution will just make the screen look horrible (for unavoidable technical reasons).

[tyme]

There seems to be an obvious possibility tyme is overlooking: the screen resolution's wrong.

 

You know, I thought about it, but for some reason I dismissed it as the problem. But you're right, that's probably it.

[AussieJohn]

From what you describe, the problem is not with Mandriva but with settings you have selected.

As Tyme says you need to make sure that you have the correct screen settings for your devices screen size. I suspect you have a much larger screen size selected. As a consequence text, icons and images will be quite large. But there again if you make things too small then you have difficulty reading stuff. Please also keep in mind that Mandriva is dealing with people who normally use larger screens from 15" upwards with the majority using 17" according to surveys I have seen. As a consequence most of the default settings seem to be to suit 17".

Funny thing about fonts, I have never found it necessary to install Windows fonts ever, even when I had 15, 17, 21 or my present 19" screen. I have seen Vista fonts on machines using Vista and I can honestly say I am totally under-whelmed by the hooha over their fonts.

Any font problems that you have in Firefox are Firefox issues and not Mandriva issues so you need to fix them in Firefox.

I use KDE and use just their default fonts but I alter the size of the fonts to suit the situation, namely my screen size and so on.

[Guest clocks]

Thanks for the repleis so far.

 

The resolution is set correctly, but good idea.

 

I agree the font in firefox is a firefox issue, since the fonts look normal (i.e. good) outside of Firefox. However all of my adjustments in the Firefox Preferences (default fonts, sizes) would only produce BIGGER text (which eventually looked smooth), not better looking text at normal sizes. In addition the fonts were still different sizes on different pages (example google news is tiny, but a forum might be 2 sizes larger than "default"). This is an issue I never encountered before and I've been using Firefox for years, so I wasn't sure if there might be a setting somewhere in linux that is impacting this. It sounds like there isn't, which may make this a pain to fix.

 

I'll also play around with right clicking the toolbars, and installing the windows fonts.

 

Thanks

[SilverSurfer60]

You can set Firefox fonts to whatever suits you, you can also set the minmum font size for those sites that insist on using tiny fonts. All this is set in your preferences within Firefox. As John says usually the default fonts are quite sufficient although with my not so good eyesight I have to set the minimum font size to about 11px.

Up until the latest release of Firefox I found importing MS fonts the better option as this is what most sites set their web pages with, but with the later version I use the default fonts and they look quite good.

[arctic]

Open Firefox' preferences dialogue (edit -> settings), then, at the fonts section (contents) click the advanced button on the right side of the fonts selector. A new window should pop up. In there, there is a checkbox that allows websites to use their own fonts. disable that checkbox. Now, all webpages will only use the fonts that you define = that are installed on your system. The web-pages should look a lot nicer if you select e.g. "deja vu sans" as default font. ;)

[Guest clocks]

Forcing a minimum font in firefox and selecting deja vu sans fixed the text problem in firefox.

 

Thanks!

[arctic]

No problem. :)

[CygnusX1]

i had a similar problem with firefox. i had installed the fonts from my windows drive. only some sites would have jagged fonts. i could fix them by choosing not to let the website use their own fonts but i didn't want that. i usually used kde. i booted into gnome just to mess around with it and found that the websites rendered fine. switched back to kde and the fonts for all sites were fine. not sure why this happened.

[tyme]

i booted into gnome just to mess around with it and found that the websites rendered fine. switched back to kde and the fonts for all sites were fine. not sure why this happened.

This is probably because Firefox is a GTK2 application, and when you logged into GNOME some default configs (regarding style, fonts, etc.) were generated.