How to get better looking fonts

[Nikolaus Rath]

Hello,

I pulled myself together and worked around the LVM problem and the rest
of the installation actually worked fine.

Now I'm wondering if there is a way to get the font rendering to look
different. I followed all the instructions on
http://fedorasolved.org/Members/khaytsus/improve-fonts/, but the fonts
look pretty much unchanged:

http://www.rath.org/res/fedora.png

I would like them to look more like this:

http://www.rath.org/res/ubuntu.png

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

-Nikolaus

[Tom Horsley]

On Sun, 06 Feb 2011 14:57:26 -0500
Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> Any recommendations?

Not really, but if you figure it out, please post the
solution. I don't know what ubuntu does (maybe just
different defaults), but one of the things I suspect
that attracts people to ubuntu is that the fonts just
always look better by default with no tweaking
required.

[Jorge Fábregas]

On 02/06/2011 03:57 PM, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> Now I'm wondering if there is a way to get the font rendering to look
> different.

I'm on Fedora 14 and mine looks like this (which is more similar to your
Ubuntu screenshot than the Fedora one):

http://imagebin.org/136443

The only thing I did after a fresh installation was to install the
freetype-freeworld package (which is the regular freetype package but
compiled with the bytecode interpreter enabled).  You need the RPMFusion
(non-free) repo for that.  After that, I just changed the settings to this:

Smoothing --> (Subpixel (LCDs)
Hinting ----> Slight
Subpixel Order ---> RGB

I know talking about how great or bad fonts look is highly subjective...
but I totally agree there's a big difference between the 2 screenshots
your presented.  The font rendering in Fedora, out of the box, is not at
the same level of neatness as that of Ubuntu.

HTH,
Jorge

[Jorge Fábregas]

On 02/06/2011 04:15 PM, Jorge Fábregas wrote:
> (which is the regular freetype package but compiled with the 
> bytecode interpreter enabled)

...and on why doesn't the stock freetype package comes with the
bytecode-interpreter enabled?  There were some patents from Apple that
prevented Fedora from shipping the package with its full functionality.

BUT... the patents expired some time ago:

http://www.freetype.org/patents.html

Why are we still getting the freetype package without the
bytecode-interpreter on? Read here:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532

I really don't know the current status of this. I just decided to insall
the freetype-freeworld package and folowed on.   If anyone knows please
update us.

Regards,
Jorge

[Frank Cox]

On Sun, 06 Feb 2011 16:29:10 -0400
Jorge Fábregas wrote:
> Why are we still getting the freetype package without the
> bytecode-interpreter on? Read here:

http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?24,110733

[SternData]

On 02/06/2011 02:15 PM, Jorge Fábregas wrote:
> On 02/06/2011 03:57 PM, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> > Now I'm wondering if there is a way to get the font rendering to look
> > different.
>
> I'm on Fedora 14 and mine looks like this (which is more similar to your
> Ubuntu screenshot than the Fedora one):
>
> http://imagebin.org/136443
>
> The only thing I did after a fresh installation was to install the
> freetype-freeworld package (which is the regular freetype package but
> compiled with the bytecode interpreter enabled).  You need the RPMFusion
> (non-free) repo for that.  After that, I just changed the settings to this:
>
> Smoothing --> (Subpixel (LCDs)
> Hinting ----> Slight
> Subpixel Order ---> RGB
>
> I know talking about how great or bad fonts look is highly subjective...
> but I totally agree there's a big difference between the 2 screenshots
> your presented.  The font rendering in Fedora, out of the box, is not at
> the same level of neatness as that of Ubuntu.
>
> HTH,
> Jorge

Thanks. My desktop looks a lot better now.

[Tim]

On Sun, 2011-02-06 at 14:57 -0500, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> Now I'm wondering if there is a way to get the font rendering to look
> different. I followed all the instructions on
> http://fedorasolved.org/Members/khaytsus/improve-fonts/, but the fonts
> look pretty much unchanged:
>
> http://www.rath.org/res/fedora.png
>
> I would like them to look more like this:
>
> http://www.rath.org/res/ubuntu.png

Looking at both screenshots, they're both apparently using the same size
font (other than monospace), yet their size and shape appear different.
Which leads to a couple of conclusions:

1. "Sans" isn't the actually same font on each.
     2. The screen size / scaling is different (probably by playing
        silly buggers with the DPI).

A very slight change in font size can make a significant difference to
readability.  Both in the effect of getting a nice size font, as well as
how well a font can be drawn on a medium with limited resolution
(screens are MUCH lower than print).

Also, the Ubuntu shot is lower contrast (the text is gray, not black;
the shading on the drop-down gadgets is smoother, most likely as a
consequence of using steps of gray that are closer to each other in
luminance values, or perhaps more steps).

Lowering the contrast, ever so slightly, is another thing that can make
a picture look a bit softer.  Which may, or may not, look better to you,
depending on what you're trying to do / trying to look at.  It can lead
to other problems, if you print or produce graphics for other people, if
you tweak your things differently to how the end product needs to be.

To me, the Ubuntu shot has gone too far.  The writing looks smudgy, and
there's some quite obvious colour fringing around the edge.  That's how
sub-pixel smoothing works, using the red green and blue pixels
independently, and that can become quite obvious once they're brightened
up.

If you don't have a way to directly tweak the text contrast, to suit
yourself, you might want to go looking for different themes, or learn
how to modify a current one.

The other thing to check is whether they use the same font rendering
engine.  If they don't, then you're not going to get them to look "the
same."  Close, perhaps, but not identical.

[Roberto Ragusa]

On 02/06/2011 08:57 PM, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I pulled myself together and worked around the LVM problem and the rest
> of the installation actually worked fine.
>
> Now I'm wondering if there is a way to get the font rendering to look
> different. I followed all the instructions on
> http://fedorasolved.org/Members/khaytsus/improve-fonts/, but the fonts
> look pretty much unchanged:
>
> http://www.rath.org/res/fedora.png
>
> I would like them to look more like this:
>
> http://www.rath.org/res/ubuntu.png
>
> Any recommendations?

Your hinting is too strong. Try "light".

There are people liking this "lego blocks" appearance (which is similar to
Windows), but many others (including you, and me) like the smooth one
(more similar to OS X).

I think that once your eyes have been trained on one style, you irremediably
find the other one ugly.

[Jorge Fábregas]

On 02/07/2011 04:19 AM, Tim wrote:
> 1. "Sans" isn't the actually same font on each.

I checked this the other day wich fc-match and it returned "DejaVu Sans"
so it's the same as Fedora.

On their latest release, 10.10, they introduced their new font (the
"Ubuntu Font") and they use that across the desktop but instead of
remapping "sans to the ubuntu font" they explicitly changed to "Ubuntu
Font" on the Appereance applet (still leaving plain "sans" aliased to
DejaVu-sans).

--
Jorge

[Dotan Cohen]

On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 21:57, Nikolaus Rath  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I pulled myself together and worked around the LVM problem and the rest
> of the installation actually worked fine.
>
> Now I'm wondering if there is a way to get the font rendering to look
> different. I followed all the instructions on
> http://fedorasolved.org/Members/khaytsus/improve-fonts/, but the fonts
> look pretty much unchanged:
>
> http://www.rath.org/res/fedora.png
>
> I would like them to look more like this:
>
> http://www.rath.org/res/ubuntu.png
>
> Any recommendations?

I use this on my Ubuntu box, it has been a while since I've been on
Fedora and I don't remember if it was different then:
✈ganymede:~$ cat .fonts.conf
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
<match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
   <const>none</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
   <const>hintslight</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>