freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

yi · 2006-05-19 23:51:35

Has anyone else noticed that their fonts are rendered differently now with the latest freetype2 update? Personally I think it looks much worse now.

Gullible Jones · 2006-05-19 23:53:25

Looks fine to me. :?

McQueen · 2006-05-20 04:15:00

Post a screenie and describe the problem you see.

yi · 2006-05-20 04:44:13

I wish there was an easy way to revert back to the old behavior, but alas that is not the nature of pacman.

Here is a screenshot:
http://www.yiqiang.net/gallery/v/screen … t.png.html

However it is a little misleading since the fonts in the picture actually look much better than they do when you're infront of the monitor

jani · 2006-05-20 05:37:34

Yep, I agree with Yi. The fonts in Firefox are still exactly the same as before, but all the fonts that get used by KDE are thicker and the edges aren't as sharp as they were. All in all makes me go 'yuck'.

Edit: playing with the anti-aliasing options and the level of hinting in the KDE Control Centre does not revert the yucky text back to the nice way it looked before.

Also, strangely enough, while the fonts in Firefox are still crisp clean and good looking, Thunderbird now also has the chunky yucky looking fonts. Restarting X did not improve matters.

stavrosg · 2006-05-20 08:27:01

Same here; While latin-1 glyphs were not affected, Greek characters went yuck :-(

mico · 2006-05-20 11:46:14

To unyuck the fonts in KDE apps, I reverted to previous versions of fontconfig and freetype2:

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/freetype2-2.1.10-3.pkg.tar.gz /var/cache/pacman/pkg/fontconfig-2.3.2-5.pkg.tar.gz

Now they are as yummy as before the upgrade. I'll just wait for next fixed versions to upgrade.

jw · 2006-05-20 11:48:25

I noticed the same thing. Fonts didn't look as `crisp' as before the upgrade. I tried enabling the autohinter, but this did not help at all.

What did help for me however, was setting hinting to `Full' in the KDE font-antialiasing configuration dialogue gets rid of the fuzziness. I'm using a CRT monitor btw, so i guess ymmv if using TFT.

Blaasvis · 2006-05-20 12:51:52

do not downgrade, it has an security leak.

jani · 2006-05-20 13:53:11

Well, the fonts are still bad in KDE, regardless of autohinter setting, so I think something is broken since the previous version of freetype2 and fontconfig. Here is a picture of the problem: http://tinyurl.com/f2cho
If you look at the 'n' 'u' or 'h' in the KDE dialog box and compare the widths of the left and right upright strokes you can see one is twice the width of the other. It is especially clear if you zoom in to 200%. Compare these with the nice looking font in the firefox browser window where no such yuckiness occurs. With the old version of fontconfig and freetype2 the fonts in the KDE dialog boxes look just as nice as the firefox text in my example here. I changed no other font settings during the update either, so it's the new versions which caused this problem.

barebones · 2006-05-20 15:32:10

I'm having this problem too. Since I don't run KDE, I noticed it in my conky instance. The font has gotten really fat since the fontconfig and freetype upgrades. So fat, that It's pushyed my poor little clock right off the bottom of the screen.

Blaasvis: What kind of security leak is it?

jakob · 2006-05-20 15:51:28

Wow, I noticed the change, too. My first impression was: "Did they change the css in AUR"? (Because all the links look thicker now)

But personally, the fonts in the forum are looking very smooth now... I like that... btw: Using Opera 8.54

mico · 2006-05-20 15:58:07

barebones wrote:

Blaasvis: What kind of security leak is it?

Changelog:
https://sourceforge.net/project/shownot … up_id=3157

One of the changes:
Some security issues were discovered and fixed in the CFF and Type 1 loader, causing crashes of FreeType by malformed font files.

Nothing seriuos, I think, but thanks to Blaasvis for pointing out the security issue.

I upgraded again and set hinting style to full as jw said. That worked for me.

Jarsto · 2006-05-20 16:12:53

My fonts also look a little different, but I don't have a problem with it. For the most part, though I will have to get used to it, I think the new way looks better.

yi · 2006-05-20 17:36:48

Ok, for those of you who do not like the way fonts are rendered now, you can get the old freetype2 package from here:

(Notice you do not need to downgrade fontconfig)

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis … pkg.tar.gz

I suppose that if people are concerned about the security issue, a backport would be more appropriate

stavrosg · 2006-05-20 18:45:09

I already had the hinting to full in Xfce but didn't work, so I'll stay with the old version for the time being

russianpirate · 2006-05-20 19:02:44

the new fonts dont bother me tooo much.. however some fonts are just TOO fat... i guess i can get used to it..

UPDATE: btw.. just realized i use gnome and i just changed all the fonts to bitstream sans and use subpixel smoothing as the rendering method.. looks soo nice now

yi · 2006-05-20 21:28:01

For people who have a positive experience with these new fonts, could you please let us know whether your display is a CRT or LCD? That makes a big difference in the evaluation.

funkyou · 2006-05-20 21:52:54

I'm using a 19" crt with subpixel-hinting activated on KDE...
The fonts are a bit bigger and thicker with the new version and they seem to look somewhat smoother, but also less sharp and crisp...

Have some problems here with some fonts displaying too bright. They are not black, they look somewhat greyish and too smooth or they have slight color artifacts around their edges...

Using bitstream fonts now, they are working good, except these slight color artifacts around the edges and missing crispyness...

Old version was better, but I am flexible...

phrakture · 2006-05-20 23:59:32

You know, this probably has to do with bitmapped fonts being off by default... there was a message when installing freetype, IIRC.

bones · 2006-05-21 00:15:32

Had a look at distrowatch and it looked like a 2 year old had designed it :shock: With a 17 CRT monitor, turning hinting style to full fixed the problem and the pages now look like they should

Gullible Jones · 2006-05-21 01:37:58

Hey... I'm not able to use bitmap fonts any more. WTF?

iphitus · 2006-05-21 02:21:08

wow. my fonts go bad, I come to the forums to post for help, and everyone else is complaining too

Update made my fonts go absolutely hideous too. Screen is a 17" samsung lcd connected via an analog/d-sub cable.

before: http://iphitus.loudas.com/images/good.png
after: http://iphitus.loudas.com/images/bad.png

take a look at my xterm, it's ridiculously blurry afterwards, and the fonts everywhere are just totally messed up.

Has anyone filed a bug for this?

Gullible Jones · 2006-05-21 02:27:10

Ouch. Yeah, that is bad... :shock:

funkyou · 2006-05-21 03:38:58

phrakture:
Bitmap fonts are activated here and i did not had the problem with them, it was simply every font displayed and having slight color artifacts around the edges... Well at least i hope my bitmapped fonts config is ok I have /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-bitmaps.conf --> yes-bitmaps.conf, the required folders are in xorg.conf and my fontcache is as fresh as it could be...

I turned hinting style to full to solve it and now the fonts look ok, even a bit better than before The last problem remaining is this. Look at the selection fields on top of the pic, the fonts there are blurry, while the rest of them is clear and crispy... I already checked the font options in my opera, but i cannot change them...

And this looks more like a gag to me, I mean the font displayed is rather the opposite of "crisp"...

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-19 23:51:35

freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#2 2006-05-19 23:53:25

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#3 2006-05-20 04:15:00

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#4 2006-05-20 04:44:13

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#5 2006-05-20 05:37:34

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#6 2006-05-20 08:27:01

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#7 2006-05-20 11:46:14

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#8 2006-05-20 11:48:25

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#9 2006-05-20 12:51:52

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#10 2006-05-20 13:53:11

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#11 2006-05-20 15:32:10

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#12 2006-05-20 15:51:28

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#13 2006-05-20 15:58:07

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#14 2006-05-20 16:12:53

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#15 2006-05-20 17:36:48

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#16 2006-05-20 18:45:09

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#17 2006-05-20 19:02:44

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#18 2006-05-20 21:28:01

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#19 2006-05-20 21:52:54

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#20 2006-05-20 23:59:32

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#21 2006-05-21 00:15:32

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#22 2006-05-21 01:37:58

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#23 2006-05-21 02:21:08

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#24 2006-05-21 02:27:10

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

#25 2006-05-21 03:38:58

Re: freetype/fontconfig, new behavior

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