I really like the font rendering of Slackware 14.2
Imho is the best rendering, better than many other distros.
I use on 14.2 those settings

On the current I see the font rendering very bad after upgrading the freetype package from 2.8 to latest current.
For tryng to reach the good rendering as 14.2 I have modify this script

The result is good..but I still think on 14.2 is really, really better (sometimes on current and other distros with latest freetype I have some eyes "burning" because bad rendering)
Some suggestions to get the same rendering as 14.2?

Have you seen /etc/fonts/conf.d/README ? Perhaps a hinting or subpixel rendering setting will improve your experience. It is always hard to give advice on this, as the experience is subjective and hardware can be variable.

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Edit /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-latin.conf to pick the DejaVu fonts over the Liberation fonts. The DejaVu fonts are easier to read and edit because the characters are wider.
Ed

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Yeah, I don't care for those liberation fonts. It took me a while to figure out why my fonts looked different on this slackware-current. It was mostly in Firefox where I was unhappy, when certain fonts were called for.

I tried changing the order and stuff in those files, and had it almost the way I wanted it, but certain forum fonts still didn't look right (to me). I ended up removing every TTF font except the Deja Vu family. Perfect... it's different configurations of those fonts that I am used to.

I was comparing everything in Manjaro and I had everything the same in Slackware, the symlinks, the ordering, but the difference was, in Manjaro I only had the Deja Vu family installed. I had to install legacy fonts for things like urxvt and stuff, but never got around to any other TTF. Good then.

P.S. I should also note that I use the dreaded bytecode interpreter (not really necessary anymore with modern freetype, it's pretty close, but I'm used to it) and lcd filter.

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I had the same adventures with fonts on -current:
https://slackalaxy.com/2019/04/17/fr...-hinting-mode/
I did what you did and in the end specified the DejaVu fonts in my browser and text editor... I have hinting 'full' and sub-pixel order 'None', but i guess that's all a matter of preference.

I have found the default rendering to be pretty much excellent on -current. On 14.2 I had to install Infinality which I haven't had to do on -current.

I imagine some of it may come down to your DE, I use Xfce with Sans font and slight hinting on RGB. I use Vivaldi browser with a few modifications to text size relative to my setup.

But you can drive yourself mad with font rendering. Sometimes it's worth stepping away from the computer, because you'll tie yourself in knots over it. As long as it's generally smooth enough, your mind will adjust to it, that's where most of the 'rendering' happens.

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Here is a comparison of the DejaVu, Liberation, and Luxi fonts. If you step back from your monitor, you can see that DejaVu remains readable at greater distances.
Ed

https://www.edgrochowski.com/photos-...nts-8-1-19.png

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My FF fonts have looked terrible for a while. Yesterday, I changed in System Settings to enable anti-aliasing, changed hinting to slight, and to force font dpi to 96. I already had fonts set to Deja-Vu Sans Book. That was the best thing I've done in a while.

I have -current in VBox also. Everything there is set to Vendor Default, and there is no problem with fonts. That may also be due to the Nvidia GT 730 card with the Nvidia blob installed. VBox uses its own graphics stuff.

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I figured out that the best way to go for me was to set Hinting to slight in Xfce which decreases the height of the fonts a little bit:



left is default / right is with Hinting: slight.

As the fonts still looked way to small for me, I have increased the size for both, the default font and the Monospace font to 11. Within Settings > Windows Manager I have set the Title font size to 10 (Sans Bold).

Lioh

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An alternate approach to mimic the old font-rendering behavior of Slackware 14.2 is to edit /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-latin.conf and to modify it that DejaVu fonts are listed before Liberation:



Afterwards one has to modify /etc/profile.d/freetype.sh as described in camerabambai's post.

Within Xfce Hint-mode has to be set to full. The default font sizes (10) match the settings of 14.2, so there is no need to change them.

Here is a screenshot comparing the results:



Have Phun
Lioh

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The last solution seems to works fine, but I prefer the hinting not full

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Also, if you have the corefonts installed, I'd recommend deleting the symlink at /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-liberation.conf

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Good point!

Just created an account to say: thanks, @lioh!! You saved my eyes!

I already have Xfce antialiasing e full hint mode.
Changing /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-latin.conf was the most important for me.
Changind /etc/profile.d/freetype.sh was just the cherry on the cake.

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Solution found, I use on current the old /etc/fonts dir from slackware 14.2 enable export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35" in the /etc/profile.d/freetype.sh script and after 10-15 days the fonts are nice as 14.2

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