[SOLVED] Noto Sans font kerning issues

Hi all,

I'm (happily ) using Slackware64 current, and realized that in chromium (and other chromium browsers), the kerning of the Noto sans family of fonts is off. This is especially noticeable because of the new Gmail design, the NYTimes front page, the new reddit, and the location bar of the Brave browser.

I attached a couple screenshots to demonstrate the effect.

My guess is that a suitable fontconfig profile is missing for this family of fonts. Does anyone have a potential solution?

Thanks!

There is a Slackbuild to install Noto Fonts on Slackware.

I don't think installing the Noto fonts locally will would solve the problem: indeed, I just installed the Slackbuild and the font rendering remains the same.

Okay I managed to fix the problem -- turns out that I need the symlink the right fontconfig configuration files. The key is to have "10-hinting-slight", "10-sub-pixel-rgb", and "11-lcdfilter-default". For future reference, here is what mine looks like:

/etc/fonts/conf.d $ ls -l                                                                                                                 
total 4.0K
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  36 Sep 16 22:02 10-hinting-slight.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-hinting-slight.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  48 Aug  7 12:39 10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  35 Sep 16 22:02 10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  39 Sep 16 22:02 11-lcdfilter-default.conf -> ../conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  51 Aug  7 12:39 20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  46 Aug  7 12:39 20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  47 Aug  7 12:39 20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  39 Aug  7 12:39 20-unhint-small-vera.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-unhint-small-vera.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  36 Aug  7 12:39 30-metric-aliases.conf -> ../conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  30 Aug  7 12:39 40-nonlatin.conf -> ../conf.avail/40-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  31 Aug  7 12:39 42-luxi-mono.conf -> ../conf.avail/42-luxi-mono.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  37 Aug  7 12:39 45-generic.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/45-generic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  27 Aug  7 12:39 45-latin.conf -> ../conf.avail/45-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  31 Aug  7 12:39 49-sansserif.conf -> ../conf.avail/49-sansserif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  26 Aug  7 12:39 50-user.conf -> ../conf.avail/50-user.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  27 Aug  7 12:39 51-local.conf -> ../conf.avail/51-local.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  37 Aug  7 12:39 60-generic.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/60-generic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  27 Aug  7 12:39 60-latin.conf -> ../conf.avail/60-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  32 Aug  7 12:39 60-liberation.conf -> ../conf.avail/60-liberation.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  38 Aug  7 12:39 61-dejavu-sans-mono.conf -> ../conf.avail/61-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  33 Aug  7 12:39 61-dejavu-sans.conf -> ../conf.avail/61-dejavu-sans.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  34 Aug  7 12:39 61-dejavu-serif.conf -> ../conf.avail/61-dejavu-serif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  37 Aug  7 12:39 64-01-tlwg-kinnari.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-01-tlwg-kinnari.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  36 Aug  7 12:39 64-02-tlwg-norasi.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-02-tlwg-norasi.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  34 Aug  7 12:39 64-10-tlwg-loma.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-10-tlwg-loma.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  35 Aug  7 12:39 64-11-tlwg-waree.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-11-tlwg-waree.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  36 Aug  7 12:39 64-13-tlwg-garuda.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-13-tlwg-garuda.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  36 Aug  7 12:39 64-14-tlwg-umpush.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-14-tlwg-umpush.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  33 Aug  7 12:39 64-15-laksaman.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-15-laksaman.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  34 Aug  7 12:39 64-21-tlwg-typo.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-21-tlwg-typo.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  36 Aug  7 12:39 64-22-tlwg-typist.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-22-tlwg-typist.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  34 Aug  7 12:39 64-23-tlwg-mono.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-23-tlwg-mono.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  32 Aug  7 12:39 64-wqy-zenhei.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-wqy-zenhei.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  35 Aug  7 12:39 65-fonts-persian.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-fonts-persian.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  30 Aug  7 12:39 65-nonlatin.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  29 Aug  7 12:39 69-unifont.conf -> ../conf.avail/69-unifont.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  31 Aug  7 12:39 80-delicious.conf -> ../conf.avail/80-delicious.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  43 Aug  7 12:39 89-tlwg-garuda-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/89-tlwg-garuda-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  44 Aug  7 12:39 89-tlwg-kinnari-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/89-tlwg-kinnari-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  45 Aug  7 12:39 89-tlwg-laksaman-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/89-tlwg-laksaman-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  43 Aug  7 12:39 89-tlwg-umpush-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/89-tlwg-umpush-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  31 Aug  7 12:39 90-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  39 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-bengali-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-bengali-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  42 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-devanagari-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-devanagari-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  40 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-gujarati-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-gujarati-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  39 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-kannada-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-kannada-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  41 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-malayalam-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-malayalam-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  37 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-oriya-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-oriya-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  39 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-punjabi-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-punjabi-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  37 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  38 Aug  7 12:39 90-ttf-telugu-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-telugu-fonts.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 978 Apr 13 12:04 README