Why is image stretched vertically on widescreen monitor?

[Owen Taylor]

On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 16:24 -0500, Val wrote:
> Thanks for the reply, Stuart. 
> 
> Please forgive my inexperience with this subject, but I still don't
> understand why the image gets stretched. If X assumes square pixels,
> then the only way a 10x10 circle would look like a 10x12 (approx.)
> circle is if the pixels on the LCD were rectangular, with height >
> width. I thought that LCDs had square pixels... is that assumption
> wrong?
> 
> Also, assuming that the pixels on the LCD are not square, if the X
> server knew the height/width ratio of the pixels, couldn't it compensate
> during the drawing operations?

The pixels on your LCD are almost certainly square.

 - Have you checked that you are really running at the native
   resolution? (xdyinfo)
 - Have you tried checking your circles with a ruler? 

The pixels on your CRT are not if you are running at 1280x1024.
(1280x1024 LCD panels are 5:4 not 4:3. 1280x960 is a 4:3 resolution.)
Maybe the LCD only looks stretched by comparison?


				- Owen