Arch Linux

theckman

Member

Registered: 2011-09-06

Posts: 3

Weird Font Display Issues

Hello,

I've recently made the switch to Arch from Xubuntu 11.04 due to some video issues I was experiencing (dropping frames).  I've managed to get pretty much everything functional on Arch Linux + Xfce.  There is one problem that has been bothering me more and more.  My terminal fonts are displaying in an odd way.  I am not experiencing the same issue on Ubuntu using the same font and size (Droid Sans Mono, size 8).  This is on the same PC dual-booting both distributions.  Here are some images to show the differences:

(click to view larger image)

Versus:

----------
(click to view larger image)

Versus:

I am trying to get my font to look more like the second image in each pair.  However, I've been unable to do so after trying a few different things.  I looked over the Font Configuration Wiki Article and came up with this ~/.fonts.conf file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
   <match target="font" >
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="font" >
    <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="font" >
    <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
      <const>hintslight</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="font" >
    <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
      <const>rgb</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="font">
    <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

I updated my font cache with `fc-cache -vf` and then rebooted the system.  After logging back in the fonts looked exactly the same.  I did a bit more reading on that wiki article and saw there were Ubuntu modified versions of the packages in the AUR so I decided to give them a go.  I installed them using yaourt, rebooted, but still the font looks just as ugly.  Here is the current contents of my /etc/fonts/conf.d directory:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   31 Sep  6 12:05 10-antialias.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-antialias.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   29 Sep  6 12:05 10-hinting.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-hinting.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   36 Sep  6 12:05 10-hinting-slight.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-hinting-slight.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   43 Sep  6 12:05 11-lcd-filter-lcddefault.conf -> ../conf.avail/11-lcd-filter-lcddefault.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   39 Sep  6 12:05 20-fix-globaladvance.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-fix-globaladvance.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   39 Sep  6 12:05 20-unhint-small-vera.conf -> ../conf.avail/20-unhint-small-vera.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   36 Sep  6 12:05 30-metric-aliases.conf -> ../conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   33 Sep  6 12:05 30-urw-aliases.conf -> ../conf.avail/30-urw-aliases.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   30 Sep  6 12:05 40-nonlatin.conf -> ../conf.avail/40-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   27 Sep  6 12:05 45-latin.conf -> ../conf.avail/45-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   31 Sep  6 12:05 49-sansserif.conf -> ../conf.avail/49-sansserif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   26 Sep  6 12:05 50-user.conf -> ../conf.avail/50-user.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   27 Sep  6 12:05 51-local.conf -> ../conf.avail/51-local.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   42 Sep  6 12:05 53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf -> ../conf.avail/53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   27 Sep  6 12:05 60-latin.conf -> ../conf.avail/60-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   35 Sep  6 12:05 64-ttf-thai-tlwg.conf -> ../conf.avail/64-ttf-thai-tlwg.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   35 Sep  6 12:05 65-fonts-persian.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-fonts-persian.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  539 Sep  6 12:05 65-khmer.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   30 Sep  6 12:05 65-nonlatin.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   29 Sep  6 12:05 69-unifont.conf -> ../conf.avail/69-unifont.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   32 Sep  6 12:05 70-no-bitmaps.conf -> ../conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   31 Sep  6 12:05 80-delicious.conf -> ../conf.avail/80-delicious.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   45 Sep  6 12:05 89-ttf-thai-tlwg-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/89-ttf-thai-tlwg-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   31 Sep  6 12:05 90-synthetic.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-synthetic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   39 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-bengali-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-bengali-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   42 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-devanagari-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-devanagari-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   40 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-gujarati-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-gujarati-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   39 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-kannada-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-kannada-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   41 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-malayalam-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-malayalam-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   37 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-oriya-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-oriya-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   39 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-punjabi-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-punjabi-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   37 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-tamil-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   38 Sep  6 12:05 90-ttf-telugu-fonts.conf -> ../conf.avail/90-ttf-telugu-fonts.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  366 Sep  6 12:05 99pdftoopvp.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  959 Sep  6 12:12 README

I currently still have the most current freetype2-ubuntu, fontconfig-ubuntu, libxft-ubuntu, and cairo-ubuntu packages installed from the AUR.  Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm still at a loss as to why the fonts look absolutely terrible.  It makes using the terminal for anything a frustrating task.

Thanks so much in advance.  If you need any additional information from me please let me know.

-Tim

Edit: Resized image per request.  However, now you need to click to view the relevant images.  Effort...

Last edited by theckman (2011-09-06 17:34:14)

sunnieside-up

Member

Registered: 2011-08-10

Posts: 58

Re: Weird Font Display Issues

If you haven't looked there yet, in edit>preferences, there are font and color options for the terminal.

yngwin

Member

Registered: 2009-05-08

Posts: 67

Re: Weird Font Display Issues

Personally I like using freetype2-infinality from AUR instead, altho I have customized its settings: http://ompldr.org/vYThpNg (that's Konsole with Liberation Mono).

But I must add that I've found font rendering to be better in KDE than in Xfce.