Arch fonts like Ubuntu

[simao]

Hello!

I switched from Ubuntu due to various reasons, but one thing I really like in ubuntu is how it renders my fonts. I had Sub Pixel Smoothing activated with 96dpi,instaled ms fonts and everything worked just fine

I moved to arch and I instaled freetyp2-ubuntu, libxft-ubunto, cairo-ubuntu and fontconfig-ubuntu, but the font rendering is still awfull. The fonts are too blurry!

Is there any configuration I can use to get my nice ubuntu font rendering back?

Any help would be appreciated

Thank you,
Simao

[fwojciec]

Fonts in Arch are configured by a ~/.fonts.conf file or by linking appropriate config settings from /etc/fonts/conf.avail to /etc/fonts/conf.d. It is by all means possible to have ubuntu-like fonts in Arch, it's just a matter of configuring them correctly.

Also, you might find this wiki page instesting: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fonts#Fonts_with_LCD_filter_enabled

For reference -- this is what my /etc/fonts/conf.d directory looks like:
$ ls -la /etc/fonts/conf.d/
total 4.5K
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 720 2008-09-29 12:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 168 2008-07-22 13:00 ../
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 2008-08-31 14:18 10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 2008-08-31 14:18 20-fix-globaladvance.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-fix-globaladvance.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 2008-08-31 14:18 20-unhint-small-vera.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-unhint-small-vera.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 2008-08-31 14:18 29-replace-bitmap-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/29-replace-bitmap-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 2008-08-31 14:18 30-metric-aliases.conf -> ../conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2008-08-31 14:18 30-urw-aliases.conf -> ../conf.avail/30-urw-aliases.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2008-08-31 14:18 40-nonlatin.conf -> ../conf.avail/40-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2008-08-31 14:18 45-latin.conf -> ../conf.avail/45-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 2008-08-31 14:18 49-sansserif.conf -> ../conf.avail/49-sansserif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 2008-08-31 14:18 50-user.conf -> ../conf.avail/50-user.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2008-08-31 14:18 51-local.conf -> ../conf.avail/51-local.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2008-08-31 14:18 60-latin.conf -> ../conf.avail/60-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 2008-08-31 14:18 65-fonts-persian.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-fonts-persian.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2008-08-31 14:18 65-nonlatin.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 2008-08-31 14:18 69-unifont.conf -> ../conf.avail/69-unifont.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 2008-08-31 14:18 80-delicious.conf -> ../conf.avail/80-delicious.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 2008-08-31 14:18 90-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-synthetic.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 959 2008-07-06 18:06 README

And this is my ~/.fonts.conf:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>

<!-- Additional font directories -->
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>

<!-- Enable freetype's new subpixel filter. Currently, only a cairo
version containing the patches from freedesktop #10301 respects this
setting. -->
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
<const>lcddefault</const>
</edit>
</match>

</fontconfig>

You might prefer different settings, of course. For the record -- I'm using the regular *lcd packages (like described in the wiki I linked earlier) rather than *ubuntu packages, but it shouldn't really make a significant difference.

[simao]

Hi,

thank you for your reply.

I don't understand. I installed and reinstalled and uninstalled so many packages and I can't get my fonts like ubuntu. :|

I tried that and everything on http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fonts and still, nothing.

I guess I'll have to go back to ubuntu just because of the fonts.

Thank you,
Simao

[kelvin spratt]

I don't know what you are doing wrong in Arch but on my system the standard Arch fonts are as good if not better than Ubuntu.

[Soldierboy]

Make sure the package:

ttf-ms-fonts is installed:

pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts

Then change the settings like you would in Ubuntu, complete with 96dpi.

BTW, no one cares if you "go back to" [insert distro name here]. Use what ever distro works for you.

[simao]

Make sure the package:

ttf-ms-fonts is installed:



Then change the settings like you would in Ubuntu, complete with 96dpi.

BTW, no one cares if you "go back to" [insert distro name here]. Use what ever distro works for you.

yes I did that but the fonts just seem different from ubuntu, some fonts are too blurry, some are too sharp. :|

I know no one cares about the distro I use, I was just showing my frustration with this issue.

Thank you,
SM

[andrek]

On my Arch machine, *-ubuntu packages do the great job. It looks JUST like on Ubuntu.

[kpkeerthi]

Use the *-ubuntu and this (http://launchpadlibrarian.net/17567455/.fonts.conf) fonts.conf

See the maintainers comment here (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=17327)

[andrek]

It's my comment, btw :) But yeah, it works great now. In case of any new changes, this .font.conf should still work.

[simao]

yes the fonts look a lot alike like ubuntu's fonts :)

Thank you!

[S-DeN]

Hello, I have installed four *-ubuntu patches and put .fonts.conf in my home. But how I may to configure fonts for CRT monitor, without subpixel antialiasing?

I use this config:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
<const>rgb</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>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
<const>none</const>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

I have replaced lcddefault with none, but fonts is too bad. How I should to change .fonts.conf, that my fonts looked better?

sorry for errors)))

[handy]

The following should be of assistance:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fonts#Fonts_with_LCD_filter_enabled