Day: November 5, 2012

For whatever reason, X no longer automagically determines the dots/inch value for the right-hand portrait monitor and, for lack of anything better, defaults to 75 DPI. That scales everything down by 25% 33%, makes the menu fonts eye-crackingly small, and squinches the monospaced terminal font. The fix requires jamming the proper value directly into /etc/X11/xorg.conf along with all the other stuff:

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Dell2005FP"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "DELL 2005FPW"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
    Option         "DPI" "98x98"
EndSection

One could calculate the actual value, but that matches what X determines for the left-hand landscape monitor.

And then it Just Works…