XFree Fonts

jon · 2003-02-11 17:28:00

How do i make the X fonts "smooth" like when i enable anti-alising in KDE. I want the "smooth" fonts but dont want to run KDE on my Laptop. Do i need to recompile anything???? I have heard that i can do this via 'fontconfig' or 'xft2' but i dont know how, or which one. Please Help.

Jon

Arielext · 2003-02-11 18:49:38

the most easy way: search the web for xfthack
download that file and follow instructions

works even better then the KDE AA stuff

apeiro · 2003-02-11 21:02:38

there are some tips in here as well.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/x-4x.html

BluPhoenyx · 2003-02-12 08:41:47

It's pretty easy to get better font display on recent hardware. The site apeiro mentioned suggests the most important factors. First and foremost is the system DPI resolution. You need to find the one which suits you and your system.

My big box has a DPI of 120 which may be too high for most people but it works great on the nVidia card and the 19" monitor.

My laptop is only 84 DPI although it might look ok with 96 DPI. I keep DPI small since it affects the font's display size. If the DPI is too high, you may have to set things to use smaller font sizes although it would be better to decrease the DPI some.

I find that values 84, 96, 108, 120 work best but you can also try 78, 90, 102, 114. To allow this to work for anyone on the PC, I add the DPI to the startx script.

  # define this at the top of startx. This is all you need to change
  # when trying different DPI values
  DPI=84

  .....

  # this line actually launches X. You will find it at the end of the 
  # /usr/X11R6/bin/startx script
  xinit $client $clientargs -- $server $display $serverargs -v -dpi $DPI -deferglyphs 16

The -v : no console video blanking in screensaver. This is optional.

The -dpi : always set the DPI.

deferglyphs : so called 'lazy loading' of fonts, render fonts on demand.

FWIW, the DPI setting is the only change I've made on this new install and things look great.

Rouslan · 2003-02-12 14:13:21

Hmm, any ways to do the same with gdm?

elanthis · 2003-02-12 18:38:29

You can edit the Xserver startup settings in gdm.conf. The gdm configuration tool might also let you configure the X server, iirc.

BluPhoenyx · 2003-02-13 01:27:55

Rouslan wrote:

Hmm, any ways to do the same with gdm?

I've looked at the gdm files and it looks possible but I don't use gdm enough to change things like this. In another thread which I can't locate right now, I posted info about using the default session in kdm/gdm to launch the user defined session. In this case, startx should run automatically.

There are actually three possible scripts which could be run.

~/.Xclients
~/.xinitrc
~/.xsession

They all do basically the same thing but for different systems. The method I use to get around the possibility of different desktops loading is to symlink them. My system is setup so I can change to one of several desktops by changing the root symlink. However, I will give an easier method.

First, set the ~/.xinitrc to load the desktop you want. Then, make a symbolic link named .Xclients which points to ~/.xinitrc. Now make a symbolic link named .xsession which points to ~/.xinitrc.

ln -s .xinitrc .Xclients
ln -s .xinitrc .xsession

However, none of this will affect gdm itself, AFAIK.

Arch Linux

#1 2003-02-11 17:28:00

XFree Fonts

#2 2003-02-11 18:49:38

Re: XFree Fonts

#3 2003-02-11 21:02:38

Re: XFree Fonts

#4 2003-02-12 08:41:47

Re: XFree Fonts

#5 2003-02-12 14:13:21

Re: XFree Fonts

#6 2003-02-12 18:38:29

Re: XFree Fonts

#7 2003-02-13 01:27:55

Re: XFree Fonts

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