LCD users may get even better results if you use the following code in your .fonts.conf file. This may work for CRT users as well, but I cannot confirm since I have only used this on my laptop.
Code:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- the cathectic LCD tweaks, from linuxquestions.org,
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=1361098#post1361098
-->
<fontconfig>
<!-- Disable sub-pixel rendering. X detects it anyway, and if you set
this as well, it just looks really horrible -->
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
<const>none</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>
<!-- The first part of the 'magic.' This makes the fonts start to look
nice, but some of the shapes will be distorted, so hinting is needed
still -->
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<!-- Autohinter is not turned on automatically. Only disable this if
you have recompiled Freetype with the bytecode interpreter, which is
run automatically. Although to be honest, Freetype are right, there
isn't much difference between the two. Note that OpenOffice is built
against the bytecode interpreter, so even if you have compiled it and
override it with the autohinter, OOo will still use the bytecode
interpreter -->
<match target="pattern" >
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<!-- Helvetica is a non true type font, and will look bad. This
replaces it with whatever is the default sans-serif font -->
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
<test name="family" qual="any" >
<string>Helvetica</string>
</test>
<edit mode="assign" name="family" >
<string>sans-serif</string>
</edit>
</match>
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>
I found this hack here[michael-and-mary.net], who in turn found it from it's original creator here[linuxquestions.org].
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