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Font HOWTO For Linux

Posted by Hemos on from the making-it-pretty dept.

big-dog writes "The Register is running a good HOWTO on getting fonts to look better in Linux." Making things look purty is always good.

10 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. The Before and after shots look backwards by mhesseltine · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe it's just me, but the after picture looks worse than the before picture. Or, maybe it's just a case of "Oops, I named the files wrong."

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  2. AA will kill your eyes by RomikQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, personally, I prefer to read text without AA, because anti-aliased text is too blurry. Sure it looks pretty on screenshots and you can impress al your friends, but really, when I have to read large amounts of text from a pc screen my eyes get tired twice as wuickly with AA switched on. Sharp edges help.

    Now, merely having TTFs or anti-aliasing isn't enough. Take a look at this screen shot of TTFs in an OpenOffice.org document. They're clunky and blocky and basically impossible to distinguish from each other. However, with a bit of tweaking we can make them look distinct, slick and refined, as you can see in this screen shot.

    I think everyone agrees that the first one is horrible. And the second... well maybe it's just me, but I can't see a difference between their tweaked AA and my own no-tweaked non-AA...

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    1. Re:AA will kill your eyes by mindstrm · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If your antialiasing is blurry, then it's just not the right one for you.

      Proper antialiased fonts are NOT blurry, and ARE easier to read than their blocky counterparts.

      The reason screenshots of subpixel antialiasing look like shit is because you aren't using the same display to see them. If I took a screenshot of my 1600x1200 laptop screen, and you display it on your 1600x1200 monitor, the fonts will look crappy to you, because the subpixel rendering is tuned to the exact screen I have, and requires an LCD to boot. Even if you have a 1600x1200 LCD, it may not look the way it looks to me, because different LCDs display things different ways; that's why there are ways to tune the rendering to look right on your display.

    2. Re:AA will kill your eyes by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Well, personally, I prefer to read text without AA, because anti-aliased text is too blurry. Sure it looks pretty on screenshots and you can impress al your friends, but really, when I have to read large amounts of text from a pc screen my eyes get tired twice as wuickly with AA switched on. Sharp edges help."

      Hrmm. Does Windows 2000 do it's font anti-aliasing differently then? (no, not Cleartype, just basic anti-aliasing) I haven't used Linux a whole lot so I can't really compare the two. I'm just curious if Win2k's idea of AA is different than KDE or Gnome's?

      Anybody comment on that? If they are different, and Windows looks noticably better (My text isn't blurry), then what's MS doing different?

  3. Re:Fonts are important by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ugly fonts are harder to read means you become less productive.

    'nuff said.

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  4. Re:whatever happened to symlinks? by AltGrendel · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Not everyone is an admin and understands the usefullness of symlinks, seperate filesystems, and having (and acutally properly using) /usr/local.

    I've had some "seasoned" admins that I've worked with for a few years actually look suprised when I mentioned that you could (gasp) mount /usr as a read only file system if you really needed to protect it.

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  5. Re:Fonts are important by mindstrm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Really.

    Well, most users I know who have windows Xp and a laptop can certainly tell if cleartype is turned off once it has been turned on.

    I run a 1600x1200, 15.1" lcd with Cleartype, and with Windows set to 120DPI.
    I can't believe I'm saying it, but the fonts are leagues better looking than any other system I can get my hands on. Microsoft did something right.

    This is so easy to read and so smooth looking, I've actually given up using an X desktop whenever possible. I would rather edit in Codewright in windows than work with the ugly fonts in X. IT's that much easier to read and easier on the eyes.

    This is the first system I've ever had where I can really say the fonts look georgeous.

  6. What?! by Ulwarth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't get it. The two screenshots he shows to compare (923.png and 930.png) look identical to me, except that one has anti-aliasing and one doesn't. He claims the second one looks better, but I don't see it.

    In fact, I think his screenshots look pretty ugly in general. He's managed to duplicate the blocky, hard-edged look of Windows 9x quite well, but I hardly consider this attractive. Red Hat 8.0's fonts look significantly better than his screenshots.

    Mac OS X still has a wide lead on best look fonts, but IMO a modern Linux box has superior fonts to any version of Windows.

  7. why? by jchristopher · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What kind of message does it send that there is actually a NEED for a "font how-to" in the first place?

    I cannot comprehend what is so hard about making fonts work. TrueType is a known format. The OS loads it up and the programs use the OS to interact with the fonts, right? Windows and Mac handle it fine, what exactly is the cause of the difficulty under Linux?

  8. RPM by Faux_Pseudo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok so here I am with my first moderator points in who knows how
    long[0] and I wanted to use them so badly on this thread because I am
    really new to this whole X font thing having spent so much time in a
    self imposed exile to the command line for two years[1]. So I am back
    to using X and this font HOWTO sounded like a great idea. Until I
    started reading it. To paraphrase "Just unpack the src RPM". Well
    hell I thought HOWTOs were supposed to be distro independent because
    the HOWTO might outlive the distro and because not every one uses
    Uber_Distro_GNU/Linux. I fit in to that latter category. I run
    Slackware and some people run Debian. Now it is possible to unpack
    that RPM and futs with it for a little while and hope that it works
    no matter what distro you are on but the HOWTOs are supposed to "speak
    in a language that everyone can comprehend."[2]
    One of the tricks to Linux's success is that is very portable to any
    arch. Shouldn't the HOWTOs be written with the same idea?

    I really did want to use those mod points here. Oh well better luck
    next thread.

    [0] remember that 1000 mod pointed post? Well apparently I have
    served my time.
    [1] to better learn this thing called Linux better than a GUI will
    ever allow.
    [2] no thats not a Living Color song.

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