fuzzy fontness

[Sean Middleditch]

Hi all,

Redhat9 gave me very crisp, clear fonts.  Updating to Rawhide, I
noticed they got rather fuzzy - the AA isn't as good.  I'm running an
LCD, and I _do_ have sub-pixel smoothing on.  (Same setting as we/
RH9.)  Using the Vera fonts in GNOME.

Before I start filing bugs and all that, thought I'd check if anyone
else noticed this behaviour/change - if not, then I guess I need to
figure out what changed so drastically in my setup...

Thanks all!

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> Redhat9 gave me very crisp, clear fonts.  Updating to Rawhide, I
> noticed they got rather fuzzy - the AA isn't as good.  I'm running an
> LCD, and I _do_ have sub-pixel smoothing on.  (Same setting as we/
> RH9.)  Using the Vera fonts in GNOME.

You could try rebuilding the freetype package with the bytecode interpreter
enabled; I've found it improves rendering noticeably.
> Thanks all!

Best Regards,
Alex.

[Sean Middleditch]

On Sat, 2003-08-30 at 11:06, [e-mail] wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> > Redhat9 gave me very crisp, clear fonts.  Updating to Rawhide, I
> > noticed they got rather fuzzy - the AA isn't as good.  I'm running an
> > LCD, and I _do_ have sub-pixel smoothing on.  (Same setting as we/
> > RH9.)  Using the Vera fonts in GNOME.
>
> You could try rebuilding the freetype package with the bytecode interpreter
> enabled; I've found it improves rendering noticeably.

Was this enabled in RH9?  Because it did get worse; if that didn't
change, then it's something else I need to fix.

Also, isn't using the bytecode interpreter illegal in the US without a
rather expensive license?
> > Thanks all!
>
> Best Regards,
> Alex.
>
> --
> Rhl-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhl-list

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-08-30 at 11:06, [e-mail] wrote:
> > On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> > > Redhat9 gave me very crisp, clear fonts.  Updating to Rawhide, I
> > > noticed they got rather fuzzy - the AA isn't as good.  I'm running an
> > > LCD, and I _do_ have sub-pixel smoothing on.  (Same setting as we/
> > > RH9.)  Using the Vera fonts in GNOME.
> >
> > You could try rebuilding the freetype package with the bytecode interpreter
> > enabled; I've found it improves rendering noticeably.
>
> Was this enabled in RH9?  Because it did get worse; if that didn't
> change, then it's something else I need to fix.

Pass; I'm not using RH9, I just suggested it as something you might like to
try (RH8 has it disabled by default).
> Also, isn't using the bytecode interpreter illegal in the US without a
> rather expensive license?

I wouldn't be surprised. That's why RH don't/didn't used to enable it by
default, AFAIK.

Best Regards,
Alex.

CPU usage

[Erik Englund]

Maybe this has been asked before but i had big problems finding out
anything on this...

My CPU is going up and down all the time. It's crazy, i don't do
anything and the curve in system monitor is like a roller coaster!

check this picture if you don't understand what i mean.
http://erikenglund.mine.nu/pics/cpu.jpg

If i look in the process listening tab there is nothing taking up any
big CPU amounts even though i have all processes listed!

If i quit all programs currently running (the one i see in gnome) the
curve goes down to a current 0-5% usage. And it's after i shut down the
"last" program when the cpu stops going up and down... No pattern as i
can see it :S

Thanks,
Erik

[Owen Taylor]

On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 18:35, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Redhat9 gave me very crisp, clear fonts.  Updating to Rawhide, I
> noticed they got rather fuzzy - the AA isn't as good.  I'm running an
> LCD, and I _do_ have sub-pixel smoothing on.  (Same setting as we/
> RH9.)  Using the Vera fonts in GNOME.
>
> Before I start filing bugs and all that, thought I'd check if anyone
> else noticed this behaviour/change - if not, then I guess I need to
> figure out what changed so drastically in my setup...

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=100862

Is a bug report on the subject of "worse font rendering", though
it doesn't really sound like your bug report. One of the problems
reported there - the lowercase g in Luxi Mono is concrete and
probably fixable with some attention to exactly what is going on
in the hinting process, but the rest of the report os

Comparative screenshots are extremely useful. I'd love to see someone
spend some time to get screenshoots that did comparisons of:

Red Hat 8, Red Hat 9, Severn

For the default Sans, Serif, Monospace, and at least the default
rendering mode  "Best Shapes". I want to create a page about fonts
in Red Hat Linux once the web page returns, and that would be
great information to have there.

Usually changes in rendering are due to subtle changes in FreeType -
Severn has 2.1.4, Red Hat 9 2.1.3, and fixing the problem can
be a fairly time-consuming process of going in and adjusting
either the fonts or the hinting process in FreeType.

I spent a lot of time on this for Red Hat 8, but since then,
I've mostly been going with the flow of whatever changes get
into upstream FreeType.

But at least if it's narrowed down to something concrete with
a screenshot "the lowercase g has this weird shape", then it's a 
lot more feasible to fix than a general "fonts look worse".

I've never found sub-pixel smoothing to actually improve things;
either it is too subtle to be noticable or the color fringing is
objectionable. I don't use it on my LCD.

Regards,
    					Owen

[Stephen Smoogen]

On Tue, 2 Sep 2003, Owen Taylor wrote:
> I've never found sub-pixel smoothing to actually improve things;
> either it is too subtle to be noticable or the color fringing is
> objectionable. I don't use it on my LCD.

I dont think I have seen it make fonts look any better on any of the 
Dell and Apple LCD monitors we have (and those are pretty much every 
model). In most cases it made it look fuzzier or just no difference.

[Barry K. Nathan]

On Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 05:28:08PM -0600, Stephen Smoogen wrote:
> I dont think I have seen it make fonts look any better on any of the 
> Dell and Apple LCD monitors we have (and those are pretty much every 
> model). In most cases it made it look fuzzier or just no difference.

FWIW the sub-pixel rendering on Red Hat looks far worse than on Windows
XP. I don't know what MS ClearType is doing differently, but it looks
*fantastic* on my Dell Inspiron 5000e (1600x1200 15" screen, so IIRC
it's 133-134dpi or so). The color fringing is much more noticeable with
Red Hat than with WinXP, but I think the sub-pixel rendering is probably
still the best-looking mode on this display.

-Barry K. Nathan