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I recently upgraded to 13.37 (32 bit) and have been having difficulty with beautifying its screen fonts.
Under 13.1, I was using Dugan's Ubuntu patches, and they worked superbly. They gave me better screen fonts than a Windows 7 installation.
Flash forward to today. I've tried the following under 13.37:
1. Using the 'default' subpixel rendering patch included with the freetype package,
2. Using the Infinality patches,
3. Using Daedra's patches to cairo, freetype and libXft,
4. Messing around with different options in .Xresources, fonts.conf, symlinks in /etc/fonts/conf.d, KDE settings, Nvidia settings, etc, etc...
Nothing seems to work as well as the Ubuntu patches for 13.1.
Out of curiosity, I thought I'd try and install the cairo, freetype, fontconfig and libXft packages which I created using Dugan's Ubuntu patches for slackware 13.1.
And viola. Sexy fonts.
Does it matter which versions of these packages I use? I'm happy with the appearance of the fonts now. Should I bother trying to update to the more recent versions of these packages included with 13.37? Is there something that will break if I continue to use the older versions?
Those lines don't hurt, but the patched version of Fontconfig is pretty much already set up that way by default. The only difference is that by default it specifies slight hinting rather than full hinting.
Thanks Dugan for the wonderful post, it does make a huge difference, as many mentioned..
I think your way of optimizing the font still apply to older version, at least to 13.1. I basically followed your updated instructions, and installed all those four txz packages, and it worked very well. Even the Chinese font rendering is really good.
@dugan:
Just wanted to let you know that these patches have a detrimental affect on the dispaly in Slackware64 13.37. I'm attaching a screenshot of my screen after updating the packages with these patches in the order specified.
I see that the files under your freetype patches are more or less infinality patches. I believe that while using infinality patches, other packages (fontconfig, libXft, cairo) need not be patched/upgraded.
Would you please clarify?
BTW... I was using local.conf file from infinality even after uprading to packages built with your patches.
Thanks.
Last edited by aurora_borealis; 07-03-2011 at 06:46 AM.
Reason: Additional Info
I double-checked the ebuilds that these SlackBuilds are ports of, and you are indeed correct that libXft and Cairo weren't supposed to be upgraded. (EDIT: THIS IS NOT CORRECT!) (The changes to Fontconfig are still beneficial). Fixed slackBuilds will be uploaded later today.
The fix for your system is obvious: revert libXft and Cairo to the stock Slackware packages and then reboot. (EDIT: THIS IS NOT CORRECT!)
Er, triple-checked it. You actually do need to install all 4 packages (not just Freetype and Fontconfig) to get the advertised results. However, the SlackBuilds did need to be fixed for correctness and I thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Fixed Slackbuilds (and a fixed README) are now up at the usual location:
That said, I've tested every version of these, and I've never gotten the hideous results shown in your screenshot. So if your problem persists, then troubleshooting it would be rather difficult for me.
I see that the files under your freetype patches are more or less infinality patches. I believe that while using infinality patches, other packages (fontconfig, libXft, cairo) need not be patched/upgraded.
For infinality-patchset patching cairo is need. Yes i know that www.infinality.net says that it is no need. But Fedora's cairo has patches, that Slackware has not. I have the same trouble like you, but very-very rarely: one time in firefox's tabs and always in previous alpha version tor addon when right-click on it (now with version 1.4.0 all ok). May be it is trouble with video's driver. I have:
I can send you slackbuilds (also include source code for freetype-2.4.5. Yes, latest infinality patchset need freetype from git ~1.5Mb) if you interested.
If you would make slackbuilds on one's own, you need also configure freetype with LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -lm"
Er, triple-checked it. You actually do need to install all 4 packages (not just Freetype and Fontconfig) to get the advertised results. However, the SlackBuilds did need to be fixed for correctness and I thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Thank you so much for checking it out for me and thank "you" for providing these ports to us.
I found the issue with my fonts and resolved it as follows: Summary: There's nothing wrong with your slackbuilds.
I had recently installed a version of freetype built from infinality patches. It required a shell script infinality-settings.sh to be sourced every time. So, I had put it under my /etc/profile.d.
I removed the infinality package to make way for packages built using the lcdfilter patches and slackbuilds provided by you. But I forgot to remove the infinality-settings.sh script from /etc/profile.d. Hence the hideous results (INFINALITY variables from lcdfilter patches and this script were clashing).
Once I disabled that script, my font issues were solved and the rendering looks much better now (attaching a screenshot too).
For infinality-patchset patching cairo is need. Yes i know that www.infinality.net says that it is no need. But Fedora's cairo has patches, that Slackware has not.
I can send you slackbuilds (also include source code for freetype-2.4.5. Yes, latest infinality patchset need freetype from git ~1.5Mb) if you interested.
Thanks, vehn, for offering to help. The font rendering in your screenshot looks amazing. Are you using patched freetype (with infinality) and cairo only or something else too?
I got the issue with my fonts resolved (please see the above post). I didn't know that slackware cairo needed patching with infinality patchset. Thanks for letting me know.
Thanks, vehn, for offering to help. The font rendering in your screenshot looks amazing. Are you using patched freetype (with infinality) and cairo only or something else too?
No, only patched cairo (two patches: cairo-1.10.0-buggy_gradients.patch, cairo-9999-cleartype.patch) and freetype with infinality patchset. And infinality-settings.sh + fonts.conf like you. Also i install http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13...webcore-fonts/
Quote:
the latest infinality patchset works with recently released freetype-2.4.5. No need to get it from git
Thanks for note. freetype 2.4.5 released 2011-Jun-24. I did slackbuilds a little earlier.
Distribution: Slackware (personalized Window Maker), Mint (customized MATE)
Posts: 1,309
Rep:
In Slackware 13.1 and before I used default configuration of the font subsystem and I was glad about the results. Unfortunately font rendering in Slackware 13.37 works bad. Default configuration produces horrible results. Auto hinting helps a little but the results are still ugly. So I tried the method described by dugan in LCD Filter Rendering section of Optimizing Slackware Linux’s Fonts homepage and I’m glad again. I didn’t included the cleartype option because I’m satisfied with the lcdfilter option results.
So thank you Daedra for the useful thread and thank you dugan for the SlackBuilds and hints.
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