Comment 22 for bug 589485

(In reply to comment #21)
> Actually, "correct" DPI only theoretically causes consistency. As a
> practical matter, the differing number if device pixels required to
> generate a glyph of some particular physical size typically results in
> an apparent difference when compared to the same physical size at a
> different DPI.

With correct DPI, 9pt fonts are readable on all my display devices. I
can take a ruler and measure the glyph size, and it is effectively the
same. With incorrect, 96 DPI, 9pt fonts are too small on my laptop to
be legible without a magnifying glass. On a display with non-square
pixels (common on CRTs), the problems are even more pronounced.

While there can obviously be rasterisation differences (the higher
resolution display will look better), this is not merely a theoretical
issue.

(In reply to comment #20)
> It was chosen in order to make display of web pages using Xorg more consistent
> with the way they get displayed on Windows, which by default assumes 96.
> http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2005/11/08/490490.aspx explains the
> origin of 96.

Firefox has the ability to render based on a fixed DPI (which indeed
solves the problem with broken websites not rendering correctly). I'm
not sure why we need the feature in X.org as well. Of course, enabling
that feature makes it impossible to read any text on web pages, but I
suppose that's only a _minor_ inconvenience...

Is the goal of X.org to be bug for bug compatible with Microsoft
Windows?