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Thread: 10.04 bad font rendering with window managers

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

    10.04 bad font rendering with window managers

    Terms
    • "Bad font" - slight hinted font in Gnome (I've noticed that Fedora 9 had this kind of font rendering/hindering/style and hinting could not be really turned on by GUI even when GUI said that it should be full hinting. Therefore, Ubuntu has applied some great patches or something.)

    • "Good font" - full hinted in 9.04; full or medium hinted in 10.04.


    Ubuntu 9.04
    Fonts were beautiful and crystal clear in 9.04 (actually, they've been great in every Ubuntu I've used so far: 7.10, 8.04, 9.04). I've used sub-pixel smoothing with full hinting (System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts) and customized ~/.fonts.conf file. I'm not sure, if that was the case, but I thought that fonts.conf file was good for alternate minimal DEs, well, actually for window managers, like IceWM. Anyway, fonts were not considerably worse in IceWM compared to Gnome back in 9.04.

    Ubuntu 10.04
    10.04 is way too bloated for me in terms of memory usage. But for some unknown reason, while Gnome is still doing the good job, IceWM and all *boxes (Black-, Flux-, Openbox) have terrible font rendering in 10.04. Trying to solve the problem, I've noticed some stuff I can not understand, but they might be relevant to the problem:

    1. System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts. When I choose sub-pixel smoothing, fonts are bad, because hinting is “slight” by default. Changing the hinting to medium or full results in “good fonts”. Weird stuff:
      • While in 9.04 medium hinting resulted in better but not quite good fonts, in 10.04 I can't see the difference between medium or full hinting

      • When I have chosen either medium or full hinting (“Details …” in System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts) and closed the window, “System>Preferences>Appearance>Fonts” window has some weird minus signs in front of rendering options (Monochrome, Best shapes, Best contrast, Subpixel smoothing)

    2. When I removed ~/.fonts.conf file, most of the Gnome DE remained with good fonts but Firefox and Thunderbird had bad fonts not only in their content but also in the menus!


    None of the above helped to get “good fonts” in IceWM nor any of the *boxes.

    Any ideas/clues how to get font rendering full hinted in IceWM?

    Content of my ~/.fonts.conf file:
    Code:
    <?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>hintfull</const>
      </edit>
     </match>
     <match target="font" >
      <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
       <bool>true</bool>
      </edit>
     </match>
    </fontconfig>

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

    Re: 10.04 bad font rendering with window managers

    I do not know how, but some of the recent updates fixed both my problems. Ubuntu 10.04 with Gnome desktop is using less memory and window manager fonts are again reasonable.

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Estonia
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    44
    Distro
    Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

    Re: 10.04 bad font rendering with window managers

    I thought that problem with fonts was solved but it is not. But now I think I figured out what's the problem and how to solve it.

    I get good fonts of GTK+ applications in IceWM only if I somehow provoke gnome-settings-daemon. So, it seems that GDM of Ubuntu 10.04 does not call gnome-settings-daemon if I log in IceWM and therefore GTK+ application fonts are not rendered with hinting and antialiasing. It seems that Qt application fonts are OK.

    I know that there are many ways how to configure things to be executed on startup, in Gnome one can do it even through GUI. So, I'll try to figure/google it out but any help would be appreciated

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