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Updated And Unified Font HOWTO
avibrazil writes "A new Linux Font HOWTO was published with way more practical info for modern systems. The still-useful parts of the two former Font HOWTOs from TLDP were unified in this new one, to be a definitive one-stop-shop for Linux font solutions."
The reason for this seems to root from the fact that gnome for example attempts to create standards across the system for applications to use in their framework and then applications try to allow you to modify the fonts in them seperately. Then you have multiple ways to adjust fonts system wide as well. I think that a lot of work is still needed with Linux and fonts. Its something (and one of the only things) that Windows and MacOS do better. Its still something that is easily tolerable.
...install Microsoft core fonts or your desktop will look ugly.
Of course, the legality of installing Microsoft fonts if you haven't a Windows license is doubtful.
I'm surprised that there aren't successful attempts at designing MS compatible fonts. What would it take? It sure would help Free Software desktops if there was a free (speech) version of Arial, Verdana and friends available. Why wouldn't the open source model work for fonts design?
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
$ emerge kde
... I messed with the nice KDE control app to configure font smoothing... a few seconds later and my fonts looked fine. I'm a linux newb, ... but what's the big deal here? Everything looks fine...everything appears anti-aliased and pleasent to the eye. I know in other distros from years back that this wasn't the case...but it works now, and didn't take me any real effort to get it working... Is there some mystery here that I accidently stumbled upon, or is this just a problem that has been solved that someone feels necessary to write a really long HOWTO on? Or am I just an idiot? (I'm sure someone will reply with such an answer...this is Slashdot!)
A few beers and one long period of REM later (ok...maybe two), KDE was installed
It does seem that if I *am* an idiot, that I shouldn't be expected to follow a 13 step program to fix it. 12 steps, and I wouldn't have been drinking the beer in the first place...I would have just had a couple of really long restful naps while Gentoo, emerge, the compilers, and whatever other magic occurs while those endless make screens flash up on my screen.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God
There's no howto, it already works!
Oh damn, there goes my karma.
Assuming that the US doesn't extend patents past 20 years, adopting the Apple method of hinting truetype fonts should be legal as of May 2009/2012
Patent US5155805: Method and apparatus for moving control points in displaying digital typeface on raster output devices. Filed on May, 8 1989
Patent US5159668: Method and apparatus for manipulating outlines in improving digital typeface on raster output devices. Filed on May, 8 1989
Patent US5325479: Method and apparatus for moving control points in displaying digital typeface on raster output devices. Filed on May 28, 1992
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I just scanned the document, but didn't see any mention, or discussion, of using fonts to display non-latin languages. What are the issues involved with this? Why do my Chinese fonts look like crap? Where do I get good free fonts for Chinese? Should I use bitmap, or Truetype? What about antialiasing? I think a good font howto should probably answer these questions.
Actually, according to Microsoft's licensing agreement, these fonts are only free for use with Microsoft Windows.
It does not matter if you have a Windows license or not, as the fonts are only to be used within Windows itself.
This was covered on Slashdot before, months or years ago in fact. Why won't the keepers of the new FAQ admit as much and let their readers decide what they want to do?
I just tried out the byte code interpreter rpm they have on the website and under gnome (without hinting turned off for the ranges they say, since I can't find the option). It looks a lot better with the autohinter. This is with both bitstream and microsoft fonts. If you're happy with the latest version of the autohinter, and want your fonts antialiased across the board, don't bother with the byte code interpreter.
It's fatally exaggerated. Even without KDE's tools the worst you have to do in a sufficiently convenient distribution (Gentoo, for instance) is copy the fonts to the right directory and 'ttmkfdir', then xset fp rehash or restart the server. If the directory is specified in xorg.conf it's done.
Unified smoothing is another story (but GTK2/Xft just do it for you by default) but not much harder. Still something I never bothered with because us old-fashioned developer types find that extended sessions of smoothed fonts messes with the mind. At the very least, my aMSN, aterm and nedit should never have any smoothing at all. Does KDE's option force all things to smooth or what?
Sam ty sig.
I've found the smoothed Vera Sans Mono very pleasant and usable in both gvim and emacs (gentoo emacs-cvs) and you may also be interested in this if you didn't see it already in the recent K5 article. Some of the fonts listed there are pretty good.
A few beers and one long period of REM later ... Or am I just an idiot?
Depends if you meant REM or R.E.M..
All the following steps basically replaced the ones outlined in linuxdoc.org, i think...
here's how i do it on my debian machine. few steps (why cant they just make it work out of the box), but really easy nevertheless.
dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
then select whether you want crt/lcd rendering
apt-get install msttcorefonts
automatically downloads and installs microsoft truetype fonts
"kcontrol trick"
kde's control center -> sys admin -> font installer
go into administrator mode (root). wait for your dont need to do anything. just wait for a few minutes while your font cache is being updated.
this also updates your "/etc/fonts/local.conf" file so you dont have to
do it manually.
goto font appearences & themes -> fonts
run gnome-font-properties
I think that's still too many logical steps, but for now, these should all work for any distro except the dpkg-reconfigure and apt-get parts.
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Whatever font I try to use (incl. M$ fonts) I cannot get them kerned properly (tried OOo, KWord, AbiWord) in KDE. Where is the problem? Does such paits as To or VA show kerned in such apps for you?
Deliriant isti Americani.
The problem is, gtk1 apps use different fonts from gtk2 apps use different fonts from qt apps use different fonts from xlib apps. Suppose one of them has a really ugly font and you want to change it, for instance, for all gtk apps. First you have to figure out which font is default, where it is selected and how to change this. If you find out the font and just want to remove the entire package you must know which one installed the fonts. I've had easier chores.
In general there are zillions of fonts installed and you might not want all of them. On the other hand you usually don't have time to download a font package and start looking at them one by one to determine which ones you want and which ones you don't want, let alone manage your ever-growing library of fonts.