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Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 19:20
by gatewayasteroid
Hello,
Ubuntu font rendering is far better than slackware/salix one. I think it's related to some patents expired:
http://www.freetype.org/patents.html
It seems that Ubuntu patched some packages:
- cairo freetype2 libxft fontconfig
withe bytecode enabled or some other LCD filtering.
Can we think of doing the same somehow?
The result is really impressive, see here (Ubuntu minimal netboot+xorg+openbox+thunar+tint2+wbar)
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 21:09
by Duncan_Idaho
you should search in the forum, because there is another topic regarding the issue of improving font rendering.
and here's a tutorial in how to improve the font rendering in slackware:
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~dugan/slackware-fonts/
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 21:19
by gatewayasteroid
Duncan_Idaho wrote:you should search in the forum, because there is another topic regarding the issue of improving font rendering.
and here's a tutorial in how to improve the font rendering in slackware:
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~dugan/slackware-fonts/
Yes, thanks I did some searches and I found that link
I was wondering whether it could be a good idea to integrate those patches in Salix. It's a desktop oriented distro, isn't it? So it's a bit "frustrating" to see that other buggy distros like Ubuntu
have nicer font rendering...
regards
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 21:23
by gapan
Some MS patents regarding font rendering have expired since 13.1 was released and freetype has been updated with them. The font rendering is already different in current and it will be for 13.2 too. I guess it's better than the rendering in 13.1.
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 21:29
by gatewayasteroid
gapan wrote:Some MS patents regarding font rendering have expired since 13.1 was released and freetype has been updated with them. The font rendering is already different in current and it will be for 13.2 too. I guess it's better than the rendering in 13.1.
That's what I thought...but in Slackware current the font rendering is still worse than Ubuntu
I will wait for 13.2
Thanks!
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 22:53
by gapan
I'm afraid what you see in current is what you'll see in 13.2. To be honest, in my eyes, I can't really tell if it's better or worse. I can see it's different, but I think it's mostly what you're used to.
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 6. Mar 2011, 22:57
by mimosa
However I can say that in Arch (which I've been playing with because of its excellent xmonad integration) it makes my eyes sore. They have a lot of help on the Arch wiki about font rendering and the like, some of which might be applicable to Other Distros, for those with the patience to get to the bottom of it. I just increase the font size to reduce the pain. I've always found this fine in Salix, though.
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 7. Mar 2011, 22:35
by thenktor
IMHO the fonts in your screenshot look blurry
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 8. Mar 2011, 07:05
by gatewayasteroid
thenktor wrote:IMHO the fonts in your screenshot look blurry
The original PNG is better, the image hosting site reduced the quality I think...
Try with this this:
Code: Select all
http://www.mediafire.com/?cdoar4q2whadu1c
http://download994.mediafire.com/1appur1xkamg/cdoar4q2whadu1c/2011-03-08-080209_1366x768_scrot.png
Or just start an Ubuntu Maverick liveCD...you will get the difference immediately
Re: Improving Font rendering to reach Ubuntu quality
Posted: 8. Mar 2011, 20:17
by gatewayasteroid
gapan wrote:I'm afraid what you see in current is what you'll see in 13.2. To be honest, in my eyes, I can't really tell if it's better or worse. I can see it's different, but I think it's mostly what you're used to.
Did you try starting your system with an Ubuntu 10.10 liveCD? Please do that if you can...you can feel the difference immediately, it's impressive. With the same font, of course (Ubuntu fonts 0.70 can be found in salix current repository
)
Thanks!