Comment 11 for bug 589485

(In reply to comment #8)
> > The 'screen size' as reported in the core protocol now respects the DPI value
> > given by the user or config file and ignores the actual monitor DPI of any
> > connected monitor.
>
> Hmmh but what's the point? Over the few past years, my xorg.conf has completely
> disappeared, either because the config is done somewhere else, or because all
> the settings are correctly autodetected by X. Why having to revert that and
> specify display size (which the user usually don't really know anyway, while
> the server does)?
>
> > The real monitor size is reported through the RandR extension if you really
> > need to know the physical size of the display.
>
> Yeah so the user needs to use X to get his display size, then edit xorg.conf to
> tell X the display size. I find that a bit painful and inconsistent
>
> > This is intentional and follows the practice seen in many other desktop
> > environments where the logical DPI of the screen is used as an application and
> > font scaling factor.
>
> Hmhm, I don't get it. I'm not really comfortable with all that, but if my
> screen is a high dpi one and my OS supports it, why would I need to do as other
> crappy os do, and stick with a low resolution, 96 dpi screen?
>
> > If you don't like it, you're welcome to configure the X server to taste; we
> > haven't removed any of those knobs. And, you can even use xrandr to change
> > things on the fly.
>
> That's good, but I really don't know why it's necessary. Wasn't autodetection
> working correctly for the majority of users? Couldn't other people use the
> DisplaySize stuff?
>
> Cheers,

+1

My current screen is a 13.3" 1440x900 LCD, resulting in about 127DPI. I was like "WTF has happend???" when I upgraded to 1.7 and saw everything in 96DPI.

Why ignore a valid information we already have? When someone wants to override this, he perfectly can do so. I don't see the point why everyone who wants to have the correct behavior has to configure it by telling xorg "you have the information, use it", it should be "the information you have is wrong, please use X instead" as the old behavior was...

Oh, and btw, which "other desktop environments"? DPI is dots per inch, there can't be any other interpretation than "how many pixels/dots are used for one inch on screen".

Thanks
Evgeni