Aaron Veteran Posted May 30, 2006 Veteran Share Posted May 30, 2006 As posted here, the font rendering on my laptop has always been fairly crappy. I think it has a lot to do with my hardware more so than linux, but that is really not the point. the point is, fonts just don't look great on my Inspiron 2600 (it's a fairly old laptop). Then I came across this thread in the Ubuntu forums and figured I'd give it a whirl. I gotta say it is the best tweak I have ever done on my system. Give it a try if you are not quite happy with your fonts look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted May 30, 2006 Veteran Share Posted May 30, 2006 I wonder what patents they are talking about, as the only patents i have heard of are Apple patents over the bytecode interpreter and hints. but, i have to try that on my system, Lucida Grande (and other fonts) render like crap (lines are too think and characters like c are pulled down below he baseline) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanobear Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 I've tried it on dapper, works quite well. The patents "could" infringe on apples patents... that's why you'll never find those particular deb files in any ubuntu repository ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted May 30, 2006 Veteran Share Posted May 30, 2006 I've tried it on dapper, works quite well. The patents "could" infringe on apples patents... that's why you'll never find those particular deb files in any ubuntu repository ;) The function covered by Apple's patent is not in Freetype by default, it's only distributed as a Patch. Man, why does this have to be so hard, cant it have this done by default? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanobear Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Another quick fix for VERY good fonts in ubuntu/debian is as root user in a terminal type dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig and select autohinting and leave the rest as their defaults and reboot. It makes Lucida Grande look very good and saves having to patch the files. Personally I'm not going to install the files again, just use the above fix from now on, I really didn't notice that much of a difference, but I thought it was worth a go. The only problem I had with the patches was the "local.conf", my "bold" fonts went askew so I removed it and everything went back to how it should have been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrA Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 The function covered by Apple's patent is not in Freetype by default, it's only distributed as a Patch. Man, why does this have to be so hard, cant it have this done by default? Actually, Freetype does contain the bytecode interpreter in its source, but it's disabled by default. The 'patch' is bacically one line which enables it to be built. And regarding patents, yes apple has patents (3 of them) and they've contacted FreeType, but no legal action has ever been taken. I presume it's because Apple is benefiting from it somehow (more licence revenue maybe). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney T. Administrators Posted May 30, 2006 Administrators Share Posted May 30, 2006 [Thread Moved Here] Barney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted May 30, 2006 Veteran Share Posted May 30, 2006 Actually, Freetype does contain the bytecode interpreter in its source, but it's disabled by default. The 'patch' is bacically one line which enables it to be built. And regarding patents, yes apple has patents (3 of them) and they've contacted FreeType, but no legal action has ever been taken. I presume it's because Apple is benefiting from it somehow (more licence revenue maybe). Well, that's what i mean, in the source, not "in" the binary (or not allowed to be enabled). And yeah, Apple is fine with Freetype (and has even gotten new licensees from it), but due to the way it's licensed with the GPL and such, even if Freetype got a license from Apple, end users still need to get their own license (same with Microsoft's OpenXML as well, even if OpenOffice got a license, end-users would need to get one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob2687 Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Made the fonts a little sharper but the bold fonts started to look like crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karma_police Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 For me bold fonts look fantastic too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tobbz Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 yea, i saw this on ubuntuforums.org too. Excellent tweak! :) I just wish i could get a patched Calibri font(vista font). I'm using Calibri on XP, OSX on my iBook, and it would be cool if i could use it on Ubuntu too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaMMa Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 Yea I've been using dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig with autohinter. Fonts look great, and no need for custom packages. The other fonts do look good, but autohinted fonts aren't bad either. Here's autohinting fonts.. Of course Suse has the nicest looking fonts by default... Check out the shots at http://shots.osdir.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmc777 Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 I used this method to jazz up my MS fonts on Ubuntu. They now look fantastic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karma_police Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 No offense but the fonts look pixelated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiftof Posted July 23, 2006 Share Posted July 23, 2006 My fonts look a bit better now, but not in the gnome-terminal: an "m" looks like an "n". But everything else is good. thx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts