If your running gnome you can change the DPI of your screen and use the Microsoft webcore fonts (among others) to increase the 'sharpness' of your display. Probably the same for KDE, but I am familar with Gnome.
X tries to automaticly setup the dpi by itself, but it doesn't do a terrific job all the time.
Here is a font howto:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Font-HOWTO/
It'll tell you to install this font package or that font package, but I prefer by far to simply make a ~/.fonts directory. The ~/ is shorthand for your home directory and the . before the filename makes it hidden.
So you'd open up a terminal and type:
mkdir ~/.fonts
now move any true type font to it.
mv *.tff ~/.fonts
and that's it. All your applications and configurations should be able to use those fonts immediately.
Also don't worry about setting a 'improved freetype library' or anything like that. Just do the font settings for KDE or Gnome and that should be good enough.
Then look at that howto and it'll tell you how Microsoft has the fonts setup. You can copy it, or use it as a baseline, or choose whatever fonts you'd like.
Most distros will have various font packages you can install via apt-get or whatnot. I like the dustismo fonts personally.
After you get the fonts sorted out in the gnome font dialog box there is a 'advanced' button. Click that and then adjust the DPI for your screen. (it'll just affect GTK-using apps though. If your in KDE's directory it will only affect KDE's apps. The control dialog for kde would be kcontrol, and the control for Gnome would be gnome-font-properties)
It doesn't just affect fonts, but also the sizes of the title bars, and menu bars, and all that stuff.
Windows, I beleive uses 96dpi by default. On pre-OS X the default was 72dpi, I think that OS X sets that by default also, I am not sure.
So you can set it to Microsoft stuff and see how that compares or you can try to match the natural resolution of your screen.
For example 1600x1200 on a 21 inch monitor will have a 101dpi.
You can find a rough chart for it at
http://www.scantips.com/basics1a.html
If you have gimp installed you can do stuff like make lines and then measure them. I beleive gimp has it's own dpi settings you can find in the preferences somewere.
Also gdesklets when you install it or run it for the first time will have a bar you can measure (with a ruler pressed against the screen) and it'll help you get a more accurate resolution.
As you know not all 19 inch monitors are the same size.. so it's going to differ a bit if you want total accuracy, but for most people getting it close is good enough.
The results will probably be more important on a LCD display rather then a CRT one.
Setting it correctly should improve the crispness and at least give you much better workable area on your display. Probably won't solve all your problems, but it can't hurt to set that up correctly.
