Stop Microsoft
Operating Systems => Linux and UNIX => Topic started by: slave on 7 December 2002, 02:47
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I just read the excellent HOWTO on theregister.co.uk called "fabulous fonts under linux" where it described how to enable the Apple-patented bytecode interpreter and recompile freetype2 with it. After restarting X, I was amazed at the improvement, especially when I turned *off* anti-aliasing. Take a look at these pictures:
before freetype hack (http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/before_hack.png)
after freetype hack (http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/after_hack.png)
As you can see, the difference is unbelievable when looking at non-AA truetype fonts (the font in the example is Verdana)
However, in RH8 I am clueless as to how I'd go about telling XFT to only AA *certain* font sizes, namely, ones above size 12. You see, AA is very nice at larger sizes, but it gives me a headache at small sizes. I like sharpness at small sizes!! So, does anyone know how to tell fontconfig or whatever RH8 uses to only AA sizes above 12? Note that the old XFT synax (match all size > 12 or whatever) doesn't work because RH8 uses XFT2 and fontconfig which has much different syntax.
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Ah ha!! Figured it out on my own. Just add this to your /etc/fonts.conf in redhat linux:
<!--
Don't antialias small fonts
-->
<match>
<test name="size" compare="less">
<int>13</int>
</test>
<test name="size" compare="more">
<int>8</int>
</test>
<edit name="antialias">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
</match>
Guys with red hat 8, you REALLY need to do this, the difference is amazing! Especially when combined with XFT mozilla.
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I don't know, I think my fonts look pretty good already. Especially after adding all the TTF fonts:
http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/redhat/redhat_8_fonts_adding_truetype.html (http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/redhat/redhat_8_fonts_adding_truetype.html)
What don't I understand, and is there something I should add to my instructions above?
I also have to say that I have never seen the fonts look that ugly in either of the links even without doing any changes to my RH8 system (no offense). Something just looks wrong in your screenshots.
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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A link (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27788.html) to the article would have been nice.
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SuSE comes with a font installer which helped it become my fav distro by a few points.
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Yes, but isn't that the standard font installer that comes with the stock KDE 3.x? The one that RedHat ripped out because they didn't want people favoring KDE? (http://smile.gif)
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quote:
Originally posted by void main:
I don't know, I think my fonts look pretty good already. Especially after adding all the TTF fonts:
http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/redhat/redhat_8_fonts_adding_truetype.html (http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/redhat/redhat_8_fonts_adding_truetype.html)
What don't I understand, and is there something I should add to my instructions above?
I also have to say that I have never seen the fonts look that ugly in either of the links even without doing any changes to my RH8 system (no offense). Something just looks wrong in your screenshots.
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
Ah Ha! but turn off AA and you'll understand the uglyness. You see, I *don't* like AA on except for font sizes larger than say 13. (That's what Winblows does) Here are some more screenshots to demonstrate the difference between our systems' font rendering.
http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/images/mozilla.png (http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/images/mozilla.png)
(void main's rendering of his site)
my rendering of void main's site (http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/mozilla.png)
void main's openoffice (http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/images/fonts.png)
and mine (http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/ooo.jpg)
Not much of a difference, but notice how the text on my taskbar is *not* antialiased. Comic Sans MS is rendered just barely differently too.
Here (http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/mozcomposer.png)
Is a screenshot of different sizes of "Times New Roman" under Mozilla composer.
Personally I don't think my fonts are that shoddy at all!
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Linux User #5225982375 ]
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Now I see the difference! What changes do you think I should make to my font page? I believe the part where I explain how to add the MS fonts is OK but I just need to make the tweaks that you did. Do you think you could hack the page up so a n00b (me) would have no trouble following the instructions?
Another difference might be that when I took those screen shots I was in 800x600 resolution on my laptop where normally I am on my desktop at 1200x1024 and the fonts do look a lot better when logged directly into my desktop. Maybe I should log in there and take a couple of more screenshots and see how they differ to the ones I took at 800x600.
I definitely like the looks of the web page with your tweak!
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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quote:
Originally posted by void main:
Now I see the difference! What changes do you think I should make to my font page? I believe the part where I explain how to add the MS fonts is OK but I just need to make the tweaks that you did. Do you think you could hack the page up so a n00b (me) would have no trouble following the instructions?
Another difference might be that when I took those screen shots I was in 800x600 resolution on my laptop where normally I am on my desktop at 1200x1024 and the fonts do look a lot better when logged directly into my desktop. Maybe I should log in there and take a couple of more screenshots and see how they differ to the ones I took at 800x600.
I definitely like the looks of the web page with your tweak!
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
Well, the first thing I did (this is all assuming the truetype fonts are installed of course) was to get the very latest freetype2 tarball, which can be had by clicking here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3157 (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3157)
Then I untarred the file and uncommented the line
#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
from freetype-2.1.3/include/freetype/config/ftoption.h
After that I did ./configure, then make and su to root and make install (it overwrites whatever version of freetype you already have installed)
Still, everything is antialiased and we don't want that. We only want to AA font sizes 14 and up, so we add these lines to the /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file:
Restart X and that's it I believe!
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Ok, thanks for that! I'll do some messing around and update my tips page. I may change it to be an RPM hack though as I prefer to work with RPMs if at all possible to keeps everything in the dependency database. In fact I should just create a freetype source RPM with all of those changes for RedHat 8 and see if I can find someone to host it (I don't want to put it on my home connection).
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ill go cook an SRPM up with this enabled/*and no i will not make an binary rpm, unless k6-3 is the specific arch that your rpm handles... maybe that should be on a faq or something*/. PM me were i should sent it when im down with it.
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I think a binary RPM would be good, just compile it as plain i386 so newbs could install it easily ;)
in fact you could make both!
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Linux User #5225982375 ]
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He would be required to make both if he made the binary (that is if freetype is GPL, but it may be under the X11 license though).
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well, right now im currently in a fight with the spec file/*probably should go find a different srpm to start with anyway*/
and how do i select a different proccesor class for an rpm compile becuase this should tell you why you would probably have troble installing one from me
and yes, i would have to provide both, hell, i should make one for each proc class, but i have to get it working first/*starting from the redhat srpm wasn't a good idea, now, im going to try this agian...*/
[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: choasforages ]
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quote:
Originally posted by void main:
Yes, but isn't that the standard font installer that comes with the stock KDE 3.x? The one that RedHat ripped out because they didn't want people favoring KDE? (http://smile.gif)
Mandrake 9 doesn't have it, i installed it last week and gave it a whirl and tried to use it.
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And make sure to get the xft version of mozilla!
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/ (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/)
[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Linux User #5225982375 ]
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I just downloaded the RedHat source RPM freetype-2.1.2-7.src.rpm. I found something interesting out, in the "freetype.spec" file there is a simple way to turn this on. I will add these instructions to my FAQ when I finish.
At any rate if you have "apt" installed you could just:
# apt-get source freetype
# cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS
# vi freetype.spec
The first line in that file should be changed from:
to
Then build and install the rpm:
# rpmbuild -bb freetype.spec
which will make your binary RPMs, then install them with:
# rpm -Uvh ../RPMS/i386/freetype* --force
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Actually, after doing just the above addition and adding the section to the fonts.conf file my system fonts now look like crap (the ones used on folder ICONs on the desktop, etc). I am pretty sure that mostly has to do with the addition to the /etc/fonts/fonts.conf because I took that section back out and my fonts look better, I don't think as good as with the bytecode option turned off though. Hmmmm.....
So far I've only been able to make my fonts look worse, not better. But then I think they already look pretty damn good and are enhanced just by adding the TTF fonts so nazi web sites and documents look like the owners intended.
[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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i know, what i was trying to do was update the version of freetype and axe the damned toggles in the first place
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Now I'm pissed. I thought my fonts were near perfect before. They looked nothing like the fonts in Linux Users first couple of pics. I think I have set everything back to the way it was but my fonts are still screwed up. I have the original freetype packages installed and took the lines back out of /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. They are still screwed. I removed the ~/.font*cache* files, restarted xfs and X and still ugly fonts. I wish I knew how to get them back to the way I had them. :0
[edit]
Ok, got them back. I'm not exactly sure how but I went into the font config in preferences on the menu and changed the terminal font to something else and then back, logged off and back on and they magically corrected themselves (whew!). It wouldn't have been too bad but it was the fonts in my terminal windows that were the worst, and I *certainly* can't have that. (http://smile.gif)
[/edit]
[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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quote:
Originally posted by void main:
Actually, after doing just the above addition and adding the section to the fonts.conf file my system fonts now look like crap (the ones used on folder ICONs on the desktop, etc). I am pretty sure that mostly has to do with the addition to the /etc/fonts/fonts.conf because I took that section back out and my fonts look better, I don't think as good as with the bytecode option turned off though. Hmmmm.....
So far I've only been able to make my fonts look worse, not better. But then I think they already look pretty damn good and are enhanced just by adding the TTF fonts so nazi web sites and documents look like the owners intended.
[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
Make sure under Preferences > Font Prefernces you have font rendering set to "best shapes", smoothing set to grayscale, and hinting set to medium. Also, that code I said to add to fonts.conf tells it to not AA fonts smaller than 14, which works for me fine but I'm not sure about all of your personal settings. My DPI is set to 85 because 96 was too big. My fonts are Arial for the desktop and applications, Verdana for the window title font, and courier new for the terminal font. Make sure not to use those old fonts that came with redhat like sans and stuff because they look like ass with this hack at small sizes ;) Truetype fonts only!
Here is a screenshot of my desktop:
mydesktop.jpg (http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/mydesktop.jpg)
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quote:
Originally posted by void main:
Now I'm pissed. I thought my fonts were near perfect before. They looked nothing like the fonts in Linux Users first couple of pics. I think I have set everything back to the way it was but my fonts are still screwed up. I have the original freetype packages installed and took the lines back out of /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. They are still screwed. I removed the ~/.font*cache* files, restarted xfs and X and still ugly fonts. I wish I knew how to get them back to the way I had them. :0
[edit]
Ok, got them back. I'm not exactly sure how but I went into the font config in preferences on the menu and changed the terminal font to something else and then back, logged off and back on and they magically corrected themselves (whew!). It wouldn't have been too bad but it was the fonts in my terminal windows that were the worst, and I *certainly* can't have that. (http://smile.gif)
[/edit]
[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
Sorry I caused you all that trouble void main :(
I guess some things work for some people and some don't.
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Don't worry, I wasn't pissed at you, I was pissed at RedHat and at myself for not knowing within a second why something wasn't working exactly as I entended. (http://smile.gif) And I looked over your desktop closely and to be honest I see very little if any difference in quality of the fonts you are using vs the ones I am using. It appears you are not using the default font on the desktop ICONs though. Mine are nice and sharp just like yours. In fact this is the first version of RedHat I have used that had this nice of font quality out of the box. Hmmmm. What I can say is the only time my fonts looked as mucked up as the ones you posted in your original note was today when I started messing with them. Maybe I've been lucky?
Either that or my eyes are getting as bad as my ears...
[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]
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Really the only reason I did what I did was so I could turn off AA at small sizes for mozilla. The bytecode interpreter makes little difference when it comes to antialiased fonts but when you turn AA off they look horrid without it. Now in mozilla the fonts look the same as the non-xft version when small, but larger fonts are nice and smooth. Previously I either had to have ALL the fonts AA or none at all, which bugged me.
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I see. The default installation of RedHat 8.0 is much better at smaller fonts than previous versions were. I do know that when I go to some web pages the fonts look tiny and messed up but I just press <CTRL>+ or <CTRL>- in Mozilla to increase or descrease the font size to my liking. I should probably just set the minimum font size in Mozilla. I had tried the xft version of Mozilla a while back and I ran into some reason where I switched back. I just wasn't happy with it for some reason.