Arch Linux

cromo

Member

From: Czestochowa, Poland

Registered: 2006-09-20

Posts: 87

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I did not know that software patents apply to Europe as well.

It's not really a software patent if you think a bit about it ;-) It's definetely more related to typography, the lcd displays and alike.

Which it actually is.

Not sure if I get this right, but it says that it's in a "Pending" state which means it's not yet "Granted", which means we can still use it legally for a while, or maybe even for a longer if it gets "Not valid" state eventually :D

So what it means is that currently it's probably legal to use these patches for at least those who live in EU.

Still, we don't know if the patches use exactly the same technique as described in this Adobe's patent grant request you linked here.

(And BTW basically you are right, luckily the software patentes are not being granted in EU _yet_. But that's pretty OT anyway.)

Last edited by cromo (2007-06-18 00:26:51)

chaosgeisterchen

Member

From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria

Registered: 2006-11-20

Posts: 550

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I want to see the person who sues you for using subpixel rendering under Linux. Seems ridiculous to me - I am not even using the Adobe algorithm I assume.

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celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
kernel26
KDEmod current repository

RaisedFist

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2007-01-30

Posts: 556

Website

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I want to see a person who knows I'm using subpixel rendering on my computer, in my home.

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last.fm

chaosgeisterchen

Member

From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria

Registered: 2006-11-20

Posts: 550

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

Big brother is watching you..

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celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
kernel26
KDEmod current repository

pkraw

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2007-05-07

Posts: 35

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I've just noticed this explanation uploaded by David to his site/repo (dunno how to call it).

In the end part we can see some interesting note:

I have even provided patches to do just that a loooong time ago; for some reason, these have never been integrated by the respective library maintainers. I hope some day they'll wake up (though my hope is pretty dim). I suspect that Linux distribution packagers are already applying these patches though...

IMO, that could be argument for merging David's patches with Arch packages. We don't bother about patents too much, do we?

Sigi

Member

From: Thurgau, Switzerland

Registered: 2005-09-22

Posts: 1,131

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

Which it actually is.

Not in CH! yeah...

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Haven't been here in a while. Still rocking Arch.

slackhack

Member

Registered: 2004-06-30

Posts: 738

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

root@homer:/var/abs/local/libxft-lcd # makepkg
==> Making package: libxft-lcd 2.1.11-2 (Tue Jun 19 13:41:56 EDT 2007)
==> Checking Runtime Dependencies...
==> Checking Buildtime Dependencies...
==> Retrieving Sources...
   -> Found libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2 in build dir
   -> Found libxft_export.diff in build dir
   -> Found xorg-lib-libXft-lcd-filter.patch in build dir
==> Validating source files with md5sums
    libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2 ... Passed
    libxft_export.diff ... Passed
    xorg-lib-libXft-lcd-filter.patch ... FAILED
==> ERROR: One or more files did not pass the validity check!

?

pkraw

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2007-05-07

Posts: 35

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I've just checked it, PKGBUILD is fine. Please try re-downloading the tarball.

[pkraw@faerun Volatile]$ wget http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/libxft-lcd/libxft-lcd.tar.gz
--22:37:24--  http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/libxft-lcd/libxft-lcd.tar.gz
           => `libxft-lcd.tar.gz'
Resolving aur.archlinux.org... 66.211.213.17
Connecting to aur.archlinux.org|66.211.213.17|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 6,447 (6.3K) [application/x-gzip]

100%[====================================>] 6,447         39.60K/s             

22:37:25 (39.52 KB/s) - `libxft-lcd.tar.gz' saved [6447/6447]

[pkraw@faerun Volatile]$ tar zxf libxft-lcd.tar.gz 
[pkraw@faerun Volatile]$ cd libxft-lcd
[pkraw@faerun libxft-lcd]$ makepkg 
==> Entering fakeroot environment
==> Making package: libxft-lcd 2.1.11-2 (Tue Jun 19 22:37:35 CEST 2007)
==> Checking Runtime Dependencies...
==> Checking Buildtime Dependencies...
==> Retrieving Sources...
   -> Downloading libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2
--22:37:36--  http://xorg.freedesktop.org//releases/individual/lib/libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2
           => `libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2'
Resolving xorg.freedesktop.org... 131.252.210.176
Connecting to xorg.freedesktop.org|131.252.210.176|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 269,900 (264K) [application/x-tar]

100%[====================================>] 269,900      148.14K/s             

22:37:39 (147.87 KB/s) - `libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2' saved [269900/269900]

   -> Found libxft_export.diff in build dir
   -> Found xorg-lib-libXft-lcd-filter.patch in build dir
==> Validating source files with md5sums
    libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2 ... Passed
    libxft_export.diff ... Passed
    xorg-lib-libXft-lcd-filter.patch ... Passed

slackhack

Member

Registered: 2004-06-30

Posts: 738

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

that was it, thanks, must have gotten corrupted over wireless somehow. ?

looks great so far - thanks. :thu:

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

As an alternative for a slightly different look, there's now Arch packages for the Gentoo Xeffects versions of libxft and cairo

Last edited by brebs (2007-12-02 10:29:54)

moose jaw

Member

From: Milwaukee

Registered: 2007-08-20

Posts: 104

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

Wow! Just discovered this thread and installed the -lcd versions from community. The difference is astonishing. Thanks so much! (Haven't yet tried the new Gentoo versions in AUR).

Edit: Just installed the -xeffects versions from AUR, and they work well. Seems to be a little less "fake color" blur behind the text than with -lcd (not that there's much with -lcd). YMMV, I'm sure.

Last edited by moose jaw (2007-12-02 17:39:44)

mumpf

Member

From: Switzerland

Registered: 2006-09-05

Posts: 95

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I get this error:

-> Found libxft_export.diff in build dir
   -> Found xorg-lib-libXft-lcd-filter.patch in build dir
==> Validating source files with md5sums
    libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2 ... Passed
    libxft_export.diff ... Passed
    xorg-lib-libXft-lcd-filter.patch ... Passed
==> Extracting Sources...
   -> tar -xf libXft-2.1.11.tar.bz2
==> Starting build()...
PKGBUILD: line 21: patch: command not found
==> ERROR: Build Failed.  Aborting...

lenni

Member

From: London, UK

Registered: 2007-09-21

Posts: 95

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

looks like you haven't you install patch.

pacman -S patch

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Combined repo and AUR search

jacko

Member

Registered: 2007-11-23

Posts: 840

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I tried that command and pacman complains patch is not in the repository???

what now???

kishd

Member

Registered: 2006-06-14

Posts: 401

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

I tried that command and pacman complains patch is not in the repository???

what now???

patch is in the core repository. Do a pacman -Syy to force update of the database before running pacman -S patch.

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---for there is nothing either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so....
Hamlet, W Shakespeare

bluesurfer

Member

From: Regensburg, Germany

Registered: 2004-08-29

Posts: 29

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

so why is there a freetype-lcd package in AUR when it's not needed?

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

There's now sub-pixel rendering patches from Ubuntu also - see AUR

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

(off-topic)

brebs, it's okay. One link is enough. Be assured that at least myself will remember your Gentoo forums postcount.

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1000

Fackamato

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 579

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

There's now sub-pixel rendering patches from Ubuntu also - see AUR

So which ones are the best? I'm using -lcd atm, but I'm going to try xeffects now, because of:

Edit: Just installed the -xeffects versions from AUR, and they work well. Seems to be a little less "fake color" blur behind the text than with -lcd (not that there's much with -lcd). YMMV, I'm sure.

Because my fonts has some colour around them..

bionnaki

Member

Registered: 2006-09-05

Posts: 289

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

There's now sub-pixel rendering patches from Ubuntu also - see AUR :)

so, will these make my fonts look exactly like they do on ubuntu? because when I was using ubuntu (up until about 2 weeks ago - newly switched to arch) they looked perfect. I've tried the previous -lcd packages but they gave me a headache. do the ubuntu ones actually do what ubuntu does? if so, that's wonderful.

and what exactly should I remove before installing these? cairo libxft freetype2, right?

thanks

Last edited by bionnaki (2008-01-06 03:57:25)

Fackamato

Member

Registered: 2006-03-31

Posts: 579

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

There's now sub-pixel rendering patches from Ubuntu also - see AUR

so, will these make my fonts look exactly like they do on ubuntu? because when I was using ubuntu (up until about 2 weeks ago - newly switched to arch) they looked perfect. I've tried the previous -lcd packages but they gave me a headache. do the ubuntu ones actually do what ubuntu does? if so, that's wonderful.

and what exactly should I remove before installing these? cairo libxft freetype2, right?

thanks

pacman should tell you what to remove..

broch

Banned

From: L.A. California

Registered: 2006-11-13

Posts: 975

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

this is font rendering that I managed to set.
http://img252.imageshack.us/my.php?imag … 082re4.png

I don't use any of the above methods to improve font rendering (laptop lcd, nvidia Go 7400)

bionnaki

Member

Registered: 2006-09-05

Posts: 289

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

There's now sub-pixel rendering patches from Ubuntu also - see AUR

so, will these make my fonts look exactly like they do on ubuntu? because when I was using ubuntu (up until about 2 weeks ago - newly switched to arch) they looked perfect. I've tried the previous -lcd packages but they gave me a headache. do the ubuntu ones actually do what ubuntu does? if so, that's wonderful.

and what exactly should I remove before installing these? cairo libxft freetype2, right?

thanks

pacman should tell you what to remove..

...these are AUR packages

jacko

Member

Registered: 2007-11-23

Posts: 840

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

so, will these make my fonts look exactly like they do on ubuntu? because when I was using ubuntu (up until about 2 weeks ago - newly switched to arch) they looked perfect. I've tried the previous -lcd packages but they gave me a headache. do the ubuntu ones actually do what ubuntu does? if so, that's wonderful.

and what exactly should I remove before installing these? cairo libxft freetype2, right?

thanks

pacman should tell you what to remove..

...these are AUR packages

LOL, install yaourt from AUR and then install the packages. It will tell u exactly what u need to remove. Sometimes people forget when making aliases to certain programs. Don't concern yourself with that, just install yaourt.

yaourt -S libxft-xeffects

...

checking dependencies... 
error: replacing packages with -A and -U is not supported yet
error: please remove 'libxft' first, using -Rd
error: failed to prepare transaction (conflicting dependencies)

==> WARNING: Your package is saved in /tmp/libxft-xeffects-2.1.12-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz

that easy.

Last edited by jacko (2008-01-06 06:59:15)

bionnaki

Member

Registered: 2006-09-05

Posts: 289

Re: Improved subpixel font rendering

thanks. got the ubuntu packages installed. highly recommended.