I guess I'll take a crack at it.
The video drivers detect the information it needs (resolution, refresh, dpi) from Edid stored in the monitor. As long as you have your video driver set up properly, it should use this info to give you the proper values. Now, if Edid somehow got corrupted, there are ways to override the Edid info and there are a ton of posts on doing this if you google.
When I first started using a Ubuntu based distro this past month, Mint 13 KDE 64bit, I too thought the fonts looked awful. The Ubuntu font at 9 points looked butt ugly IMO and I adjusted all fonts in System Settings to Nimbus Sans L at 10 points. Much better.
BTW, I also have a 1680x1050 monitor and the nVidia drivers pulled the Edid and set my DPI display at 99x98 automatically.
Could you post the output of
- Code: Select all
$ grep -B 1 "DPI" /var/log/Xorg.0.log
EDIT: Also check Synaptic for 100 dpi font and install them.
EDIT 2: While I'm in System Setting changing the fonts to Nimbus Sans L, I also Enable anti-aliasing, and configure anti-aliasing to medium or whatever looks best to you. No check marks in either box.