Changing font sizes in X

[Phil Gambrel]

Yes, I am a newbie...  to FreeBSD not to computers.  I cut my teeth on Apple Basic 20 years ago; learned DOS 15 years ago, and was dragged kicking and screaming into the Gui world of Windows.  But I am a user, not a hacker.  In an attempt to cleanse my system of anything MS, I decided to try a boxed set of FreeBSD from my near-by computer mega-store.

Actually it took me nearly a year to work up the courage to start again at the bottom of the learning curve.  I must say, that installing FreeBSD is not a very user friendly activity.  After 3 failed attempts I finally discovered how to configure X to actually run.  I thought this stuff was supposed to be rock solid.  I am very familiar with the blue screen of death, but at least it has instructions and the option to shut down.

I found myself staring at a white/black herring-bone back ground with a giant X starimg me in the face.  I could move the X with my mouse, but nothing else would happen.  After staring at this black X for over 40 minutes, and against all caution from the instruction manual, I hit the "off" key on my box.

My problem seemed to be from my desire to have an 800 X 600 display which I can read, even without my glasses, instead of the 1280 X 1024 my monitor is capable of displaying.  With the higher resolution display, I was able to launch an X server, and loaded up Gnome with enlightenment.  Now I have these itty-bitty little menus and icons which I can only read by tilting my head back and looking through the bottom of my bi-focals.  I am an old man, and the neck doesn't flex like it did when I only had to read a 40 column monochrome screen.

How can I enlarge my fonts/menus/icons without giving up the high resolution needed for all the pictures of the grand-kids?

eg
curmudgeon_eg at msn.com  (ironic isn't it?)