Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality

[gatewayasteroid]

Ultimately (read "when I can find time between about 100 others To Do items: ) I plan to propose a patch to the applicable package so that everyone can enjoy clearer fonts. If the experience of others is different then the proposal may be rejected. It's worth trying anyway.

phayz,
As a very last try I used you hack of overwriting salix files with frugalware ones; freetype2 did the trick (so I confirm that that version is patched for subpixel hinting) and Thunar fonts were perfect! But it didn't affect firefox
I also tried overwriting cairo, libxft and fontconfig: no way.
It's a pity because I really like Salix but font quality is a must for my eyes (I'm astigmatic)...
Thank you for your help, anyway

[JRD]

For me, I see this is different than Ubuntu or Windows, but not worse or better, just different. So if the majority prefer the rendering used in Frugalware and if this doesn't break compatibility with Slackware I'm ok.
About firefox I bet this is because the fontrendering mechanism is statically linked into it. So a recompilation might be necessary.
Sorry no time to try this, I'm on the lice cd creation process (and it's a lot of changes since the last one).

[gatewayasteroid]

For me, I see this is different than Ubuntu or Windows, but not worse or better, just different. So if the majority prefer the rendering used in Frugalware and if this doesn't break compatibility with Slackware I'm ok.

I think it's a matter of physical screen size and resolution. I have a 19" 1366x768 screen, and maybe this "low" resolution makes the "uglyness" more evident.
In my case it's not different, it's worse, a lot worse

About firefox I bet this is because the fontrendering mechanism is statically linked into it. So a recompilation might be necessary.

yes

Sorry no time to try this, I'm on the lice cd creation process (and it's a lot of changes since the last one).

[pevsner]

@gatewayasteroid
I found that if I use "lxdm" or "slim" rather than "gdm" or console, the result is, I get crappy fonts with gtk apps (openbox and qt are ok). My ".Xresources" and ".fonts.conf" are exactly the same, wierd! I recall having the same problem with "vectorlinux" a long while ago (and thrashing a solution out with vector, although I'm not certain what he did), it is frustrating.
I just boot to init 3 and login from console now and fonts are as good as any other distro.

[gatewayasteroid]

@gatewayasteroid
I found that if I use "lxdm" or "slim" rather than "gdm" or console, the result is, I get crappy fonts with gtk apps (openbox and qt are ok). My ".Xresources" and ".fonts.conf" are exactly the same, wierd! I recall having the same problem with "vectorlinux" a long while ago (and thrashing a solution out with vector, although I'm not certain what he did), it is frustrating.
I just boot to init 3 and login from console now and fonts are as good as any other distro.

But I used a standard Salix 13.37, it should have GDM, isn't it?
Under Ubuntu fonts are good in all cases (with startx, nodm, slim, ...)
I will make some more tests, anyway, thanks.