kde fonts compared to gnoome fonts

jang · 07-23-2005, 10:13 PM

Hello. I've tried a lot of distributions. I always go back and forth, between fedora and suse. I'm currently comparing suse 9.3 and fedora fc4. I wonder why Suse 9.3 Gnome fonts look a lot better than fedora Gnome fonts. It's more solid or something. I also use slax (a livecd) using kde. It's fonts look the same as suse 9.3. Is it because suse 9.3 is basically a kde distro, and I only chose to install gnome, that's why I get the same kde quality fonts? Any help?

I like gnome, but I find it difficult to surf, specially I'm using Opera 8.01 for linux. They don't look nice.

aysiu · 07-23-2005, 10:35 PM

Fonts usually have nothing to do with the desktop (KDE v. Gnome). The distribution decides what fonts to install. You can always YaST or Yum more fonts or just download fonts from a website and install them yourself. Once that's done, in both Gnome and KDE you can decide in preferences which fonts you want to use for what.

As for the Opera fonts... those you choose in Opera preferences--that has little to do with Linux at all.

jang · 07-24-2005, 02:24 AM

No, but what I'm saying is the font engine itself. I'm not complaining that suse chooses times new roman while gnome uses verdana. I'm saying times new roman in suse looks a lot better than times new roman in fedora. That's what's getting me so confused. They look a whole lot better in suse than in fedora. Both running gnome.

cathectic · 07-24-2005, 01:24 PM

Probably down to FreeType, the font engine.

Due to patent restrictions, some distributions ship with a 'crippled' version of FreeType (The 'bytecode interpreter' that is necessary for some fonts is covered by Apple patents in some countries. In those cases, the distributor will disable the interpreter and use FreeType's patent free automatic hinter).

jang · 07-25-2005, 04:32 AM

Could be. I am hesitant on installing Fedora Core 4 once again because of this. Unfortunately, I like Fedora better than Suse, but I hate the way fonts look. I find Suse kinda bloated, or slow in response.

Thanks.

puter · 08-03-2007, 10:03 AM

if you do reinstall fedora
recompiling freetype with BCI should fix everything right up
i just recently got all my fonts looking good in slackware, which is one of the distros that ships with the BCI off
this is how i got it all set up:
http://webplaza.pt.lu/uselpa/beautiful.html#toc2