How to Optimize Fonts in Slackware

dugan · 10-01-2012, 01:41 PM

SlackBuilds for Source Code Pro and Source Sans Pro. I'm going to make them available from Dropbox until they're up on SBo:

Check the .info files for the source download links.

Source Sans Pro is a user-interface font. Source Code Pro is for terminals and text editors. Both are by Adobe.

You can follow their development on Adobe's Tyblography blog.

Daedra · 10-01-2012, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GNU/Linux

These fonts/rendering really good Daedra, thanks for the screenshots. Is there any other difference between Slacware 13.37 and 14 as far as all that font patching is concerned. Like do we have to recompile Firefox again with cairo enabled or any other finer details that we should be aware of?

No its very easy this time, Just recompile Freetype and Cairo and save the .fonts.conf file in your home directory and your good to go. In fact the newer versions of Cairo don't need to be patched, the only reason we do it with 14 is because its an older version. These patches are very generic compared to infinality and the lcd-filter that dugan provides, I've just used them for years and are happy with the results they give. This is the last release that I will maintain the patches for though, after 14 the patches will be obsolete.

dc_eros · 10-01-2012, 09:47 PM

Thanks dugan, I've waited that for months

dsotm · 10-02-2012, 01:34 AM

Thanks so much for your work... my fonts look great again!

dc_eros · 10-02-2012, 04:02 AM

Just used the Source (Sans/Source) Pro and it looks great. Just copied the 35-droid.conf sample to create the source pro equivalent but not sure which is the right way, anyway, it works

dsotm · 10-02-2012, 02:03 PM

I just noticed that after running this the fonts in konsole look messed up... any idea how to fix this?

dugan · 10-02-2012, 02:39 PM

I don't know what happened to your Konsole fonts, and I can't reproduce the problem here.

dsotm · 10-02-2012, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugan

I don't know what happened to your Konsole fonts, and I can't reproduce the problem here.

It's really weird, happened on my desktop and laptop but only in konsole, the other terminals work fine. It's only really bad with the Terminus font, the others just kind of look a little blurry

dsotm · 10-02-2012, 02:57 PM

Didn't even realize XFCE's Terminal was this customizable... still weird that konsole got screwed up but at least I've got something equally as functional to fall back on! The Chrome/Firefox fonts were starting to bother me quite a bit!

dugan · 10-03-2012, 03:55 PM

I've noticed that my current Fontconfig SlackBuild puts 10-autohint.conf in /etc/fonts/conf.d. I'm not going to change this because the cause is upstream from me, but I would personally remove it after installing Fontconfig.

Martinus2u · 10-03-2012, 04:43 PM

just for info, in case you are using a secondlife viewer, you might be aware of fontconfig 2.9.0 crashing the same. I have developed a patch which can be conveniently integrated in Dugan's build. Simply copy it into duganchen-slackware-lcdfilter-77ce07d/fontconfig/files. You also need to add a line to the SlackBuild in the same spot where the other patches are applied.

Reference:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...rs-4175430353/

rbeef · 10-03-2012, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedra

Here are the patches I use for 14, these patches are based off the old cleartype patches written by David Turner of Freetype. These patches are almost obsolete because most the code has now been merged upstream. We still need to patch freetype and cairo, but the libXft patch is no longer needed. Truth is this is the last release I will maintain these patches for since the patches won't needed in the very near future.

Freetype
Cairo

Config File (Copy this code and save it in your home directory as .fonts.conf)

Before
After

This is just awesome, Slackware got a lot prettier, without getting me frustrated about the fonts. Thank you.

SqdnGuns · 10-04-2012, 02:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedra

Here are the patches I use for 14, these patches are based off the old cleartype patches written by David Turner of Freetype. These patches are almost obsolete because most the code has now been merged upstream. We still need to patch freetype and cairo, but the libXft patch is no longer needed. Truth is this is the last release I will maintain these patches for since the patches won't be needed in the very near future.

Freetype
Cairo

Config File (Copy this code and save it in your home directory as .fonts.conf)

Before
After

Thanks!

D1ver · 10-04-2012, 04:06 AM

I've followed Daedra's post and patched Cairo and Freetype, adding the config file. I installed Source Code pro and Source sans and set up KDE and Terminal to use the fonts.

Can someone explain to me like I'm five, what these steps are doing? Things look pretty good now, but some things seem a bit fuzzy/blurry. Is this normal? I've attached a screenshot to try to help demonstrate what I mean..

I. Using 10pt source code pro the bold 'm's in message seem to run together a bit

II. Smaller fonts in the menus and stuff look a bit funny? Or is it just me. Is it reasonable to use Source Sans as an 8pt font in kde settings?

Edit:
I set KDE to force anti-aliasing and set hinting to slight and things look a bit better now. Why do I always make progress after asking for help? :P

Daedra · 10-04-2012, 04:36 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering

Basically the patches just enable the subpixel rendering feature that is built into freetype, it is disabled in the stock Slackware package because its patented code by Microsoft so your only really supposed to enable it if you have a license to do so. An end user doesn't really have to worry about this but someone like Pat who owns the distribution and does sell it can get into trouble for enabling it. The other patches just add various improvements to the quality. The patches Dugan provide are a lot more robust and allow for more customizations for those who really want to tweak their settings.

I also noticed fuzzy looking fonts in the KDE panel and plasma and its because for some reason subpixel rendering is not working for plamsa. See for your self, if your using kwin desktop effects you can zoom in on a section of the screen by selecting <windows key - +> click on the panel and zoom in and you will see, then zoom in on firefox you should see color tinging on the fonts, which is correct. I am currently trying to find a fix for this.

You can see what I am talking about in your screenshot. Zoom in on any text on the kde panel then zoom in on text anywhere else. See the difference?