I am new to LinuxQuestions.org but I have been using the Linux operating system for many years as a firmware developer. The bulk of my experience in firmware and software development has been centered around font development and font rendering technology while working for a laser printer manufacturer.

Now that I am retired and still quite interested in keeping myself busy, I would like to contribute to the Linux community by trying to improve the quality of TrueType font rendering. I hate to admit it, but the quality of text displayed on a Windows machine is far better than that seen in most Linux apps. (In my humble opinion, of course.)

Where can I find the packages, libraries, and source code used in TrueType font rendering in this OS?

Any help that will lead me to the sources would be very much appreciated. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute.

freetype2 seems to be the thing that renders TTFs.
Their homepage on sourceforge would be a good place for you to start.

My linux fonts (in KDE 3.5) are much better than the ones at work (where we have to use winXP).

Welcome to LQ!

That would be much appreciated

Actually the rendering algorithms used by Linux are already more powerful than those used by Windows. Windows comes with professionally written fonts with high-quality instructing, so there's less work for the OS to do. I use TT fonts with no instructions which look terrible in Windows, but seldom go astray in Linux. Nevertheless, there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Alot of ppl copy over their windose TTF's to linux. Do they look the same in linux? If not, why?
How can I improve my fonts in linux?

Thanks for any ideas

tredegar,
Thank you for the pointer to the freetype2 web site. I have learned something new already from this forum.
I want to get the sources, study them for a while to see if I can find anything where my font experience can help.
Later on I'll start asking again to learn how to build a kernel so I can test and evaluate my findings.

You're welcome.

I don't think you need to "build a kernel". Someone else has already done that for you. If you are not running linux already (and it looks like you are posting from "Win7") then just hop over to http://distrowatch.com/ and get your self a distro from one of those listed in the top 10 of "Page Hit Ranking".

Install linux, install build-essential (to get you the c compiler and a load of other stuff) install the kernel source (needed if you are going to alter and recompile freetype2) then get busy. Freetype is the only bit you'll have to recompile, not the kernel (as I see it, somebody please correct me otherwise).

A word of warning. As you worked with fonts for "a printer manufacturer" you might need to "clear your mind" of some of the things you knew / learnt in your last job. The reason being that said printer manufacturer might not be at all pleased to see code or techniques surprisingly similar to "their" code or techniques turning up in future GPL code. Maybe you should take some advice (from a lawyer, the GPL people, your ex-employer, or even us here on LQ [in a different thread]).

Hope you have fun (and don't get into trouble).