Subpixel antialiasing doesn't look very good on my monitor because I get color "ringing". (Subpixel is when red and blue pixels are used on the sides of font dots to try and smooth diagonal/curved lines... you can see this more easily by using "xmag" or "kmag" and zooming into some text on the screen).

I would like to disable subpixel (RGBA) and just use greyscale antialiasing instead. On some systems, I had success by use adding this to my .fonts.conf file:

<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
<const>off</const>
</edit>
</match>

On a Mandriva 2006.0 system, such a construct would immediately take effect on any new application launched that uses freetype/fontconfig. (I have also used "none" instead of "off"). However, this doesn't appear to work on this Mandriva 2009.1 system! I even tried it in /etc/fonts/conf.d and it doesn't do anything there either.

Documentation for fontconfig is really spotty. I have spent many hours fighting this to no avail. (I don't want to use a GUI config program, I need to know the lower-level way of doing this). Are there any ideas out there? Thanks

Please don't cross post.
This is a duplicate of http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=750738

Sorry, I didn't know that wasn't allowed. I couldn't find anything in the rules:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/rules.html

Nor in the FAQ's:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/faq.php

(Not saying it isn't there, but I couldn't find anything addressing it. Perhaps it should be added or added more prominently if it is an issue?)

How does one post to more than one forum when you can't decide which one is most appropriate? In this particular case, I don't know if the problem is specific to Mandriva or if it is just general linux fontconfig software...

When in doubt, go th the most generic forum. Cross posting is poor Netiquet. By creating one thread in a single forum, all responses are collected in a single location, making things easier for you (the poster) and any one else who has a similat problem in the future.

HTH,