Make Text Like Windows

Slurpee · 07-05-2008, 11:09 PM

Hey All.

I finally made the switch today. I backed up my data, and got rid of XP and installed Mandriva. It's using KDE 3.5.

Anyway, I really need to get the text looking like it did in Windows. It's giving me a headache, I may have to switch back if I can't.

I installed the Windows fonts, Arial, Times New Roman, etc.

But the text still looks glossy. I went into the KDE Control Center, and then to Fonts. I turned off Anti-Aliasing. Which made it not glossy, but then the text was all cruddy and bad.

How can I get the text in Linux to look like Windows. Please help.

Thanks.

stress_junkie · 07-05-2008, 11:29 PM

I think you're on the right track using kcontrol (KDE Control Center). Try setting your fonts to all Sans Serif at 12 points. Turn anti-aliasing back on. It smooths out the lines in the letters. I don't know what you mean by glossy but anti-aliasing can help make text more readable. Next to the anti-aliasing enable/disable is a configure button. When I click on that I can see that the hints are set to medium and the other features are not enabled. (exclude range and sub-pixel hinting are not enabled)

Slurpee · 07-05-2008, 11:59 PM

Thanks for the reply.

I've been fiddling around, and just can't get it to look right. It really is giving me a headache looking at it, maybe because I'm just not used to it.

I took a snapshot of your post on Mandriva, and another on my brothers Windows computer. I want it too look like the Windows. You can see its clear and the letters are finer. On Linux it looks sort of blurry and glossy.

Linux:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2.../textlinux.png

Windows:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...extwindows.png

lazlow · 07-06-2008, 12:21 AM

I know in F8 you had to add a dpi=96 to the xorg.conf to help with this. It has been a while but it should be close to that.

Slurpee · 07-06-2008, 04:59 AM

Thanks for the replies.

I wanted to follow-up on this topic, encase someone in the future is trying to figure out the same thing. Anyway, I installed openSuse 11 to see if that would change anything. I first tried KDE 4, and the texts still had the glossy font, and I couldn't find how to correct it.
Then I re-installed openSuse and used GNOME 2. I went in the Control Center, and clicked the Appearance button. I then fiddled with it a bit, and got the text much nicer, very close to Windows. I may be able to get it even more so with more tweaking.

So anyone who is going through this, may want to try GNOME, as it seems to have more options for editing the text/fonts.