Update to Kubuntu 9.10

My laptop is now finally running Kubuntu 9.10. After some problem with the upgrade I decided to do a fresh install.

After the regular upgrade the following was messed up:

1. The boot splash was not shown correct during startup, as the screen resolution settings during boot time seem to have changed in kubuntu 9.10
2. The x server was running with the wrong resolution (1024×768) and chose the wrong refresh rate of my connected lcd monitor.
   I changed the resolution of my connected monitor in the kde system settings to 1280×1024 and disabled the internal display. Everything looked fine then, except that the mouse pointer disappeared. But worst of all the setting was gone after reboot.

After the fresh install the monitor still didn’t use the full resolution of my connected monitor. Changing the resolution in the kde system settings worked – this time the mouse pointer didn’t disappear. But unfortunately after a reboot the resolution was again to low (1024×768).

I found a very useful page about different ways of changing screen settings: https://wiki.kubuntu.org/X/Config/Resolution

Adding the following line to /etc/kde4/kdm/Xsetop worked for me:

xrandr –output VGA1 –mode 1280×1024 –rate 60

Everything look fine until I opened firefox. The the fonts in the menu bar were far too big.

ugly firefox fonts

I then googled a bit and found the bug report Bug #420610. There it was suggested to add the following paragraph to
~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals:

[General]
XftHintStyle=hintmedium
font=DejaVu Sans,8.-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0

But this didn’t work. After a kde restart the fonts in firefox looked as they should, but unfortunately the fonts in kde applications  were now much to big.

After playing around with different settings I finally found a solution: In kde “system settings -> Look & Feel -> Appearance -> Fonts” I had to set Force fonts DPI to 96 DPI. Now the fonts in firefox and the other kde applications are as they should be.

At a first glance everything then looked fine. But then I entered something into the google search form and the font in the form field was again to large. I had to change the firefox paramter layout.css.dpi to 96 in about:config and restart firefox.