How to Optimize Fonts in Slackware

slackd · 11-15-2010, 09:31 PM

Good Work, Daedra.

I might try out cleartype for a change!!

tomtomjkw · 11-16-2010, 01:46 AM

Thanks Daedra, my fonts are back to their good cleartype-selves.

Additional question - what does exactly libXft cleartype patch do? I can't build libXft with your slakbuild (line 60: ./configure no such file or directory), but honestly I haven't ever been able to see the difference beetween stock libXft and Dugan's one.

Daedra · 11-16-2010, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomtomjkw

Thanks Daedra, my fonts are back to their good cleartype-selves.

Additional question - what does exactly libXft cleartype patch do? I can't build libXft with your slakbuild (line 60: ./configure no such file or directory), but honestly I haven't ever been able to see the difference beetween stock libXft and Dugan's one.

Hhmm, I just checked the build and it works fine on my end. That's weird, where did you download the source? Also you can try src2pkg, just run it in the build directory and it will automatically pick up the patch and slack-desc file.

And it's been debated on whether or not you really need to recompile libXft, but in my opinion it does make a difference.

stormtracknole · 11-16-2010, 04:27 AM

Daedra,

This is will be my first attempt at using cleartype. I have a question, do I need to rebuild the freetype version provided in the latest current, or could I use a previous version?

Daedra · 11-16-2010, 04:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stormtracknole

Daedra,

This is will be my first attempt at using cleartype. I have a question, do I need to rebuild the freetype version provided in the latest current, or could I use a previous version?

well the builds I posted are for -current but older versions work fine. You just need to make sure that BCI/subpixel rendering/disable quantization patches are enabled in the slackbuild and you good to go with freetype.

stormtracknole · 11-16-2010, 04:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedra

well the builds I posted are for -current but older versions work fine. You just need to make sure that BCI/subpixel rendering/disable quantization patches are enabled in the slackbuild and you good to go with freetype.

I see that this is enabled by default. I'm in the process of rebuilding all the needed packages. I'm impressed by your comparison png images. I'm not sure why I haven't tried cleartype before.

Daedra · 11-16-2010, 04:38 AM

are you building on current or slackware 13.1? Cause I have builds for both I just only have my -current ones posted right now. but I can post them if you need them?

stormtracknole · 11-16-2010, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedra

are you building on current or slackware 13.1? Cause I have builds for both I just only have my -current ones posted right now. but I can post them if you need them?

I'm building this on current. You could post your notes for the stable branch in case someone else wants them.

tomtomjkw · 11-16-2010, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedra

Hhmm, I just checked the build and it works fine on my end. That's weird, where did you download the source? Also you can try src2pkg, just run it in the build directory and it will automatically pick up the patch and slack-desc file.

And it's been debated on whether or not you really need to recompile libXft, but in my opinion it does make a difference.

Downloaded from here.

stormtracknole · 11-16-2010, 09:09 AM

Daedra,

Had great success using the modified freetype to build "cleartype". The instructions worked out great! Just for the heck of it, I tried the latest current freetype, and adding 10-autohint.conf to /etc/fonts/conf.d/ which gave me good results also. Both options used .fonts.conf file that you provided in a previous post. I like the "cleartype" fonts much, much better though!

Thanks for your help on this!

onebuck · 11-16-2010, 12:34 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedra

are you building on current or slackware 13.1? Cause I have builds for both I just only have my -current ones posted right now. but I can post them if you need them?

I'd be interested in looking at the builds.

Daedra · 11-16-2010, 05:48 PM

Here are builds for 13.1 cleartype. Like I said in the previous post you can rebuild fontconfig with Dugan's build but I just skip that step and use a .fonts.conf file in my home directory. Either way works, but the .fonts.conf way is the lazy way

.

http://webpages.charter.net/daedra1/cleartype.zip

amiga32 · 11-16-2010, 10:35 PM

Anyone know how to get OS X Quartz style rendering? Or the closest fontconfig example and patches? Cleartype is ok, but I prefer the super AA OS X offers. Text shapes look more accurate to me, at the expense of extra blurriness which I don't mind.

Daedra · 11-17-2010, 12:50 AM

You can try my cleartype builds with my .fonts.conf file, but don't enable sub-pixel rendering, this should give you the over AA blurry look your wanting. You might be able to achieve this with the stock packages, but I haven't tried OS X style in over a year so I can't remember, I do know that disabling sub-pixel rendering definitely gave a more OS X look.

Good Luck.

V4Nelle · 11-18-2010, 08:39 AM

I get this message...why?

Hunk #1 succeeded at 27.
Hunk #2 succeeded at 53.
Hunk #3 succeeded at 145.
Hunk #4 succeeded at 187.
Hunk #5 succeeded at 208.
Hunk #6 succeeded at 287.
Hunk #7 succeeded at 381.
Hunk #8 succeeded at 393.
Hunk #9 succeeded at 411.
Hunk #10 succeeded at 530.
done
./libXft.SlackBuild: line 60: ./configure: No such file or directory