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#1 2017-01-08 18:46:57

graysky
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Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

The harfbuzz update killed freetype2-infinality from the AUR which I have been using for a while to make fonts appear pleasing to my eye.  I have remove the package replacing it with freetype2 from [extra] but I can't get used to the font rendering which appears a bit jagged and just wrong to me.  I didn't see anything helpful on the fonts wiki article.  How are folks who also needed to remove freetype2-infinality doing it?

EDIT: xfce4 if that matters.  Settings>Appearance>Fonts Anti-aliasing enabled/medium hinting (full and slight don't look right); sub-pixel order = none.

Last edited by graysky (2017-01-08 19:05:33)


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#2 2017-01-08 18:50:57

jasonwryan
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

It is a configuration issue. Upstream adopted the infinality features months ago. Work through the font configuration page on the wiki and choose the appropriate value in /etc/profile.d/freetype.sh and you will get exactly the same result.


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#3 2017-01-08 18:59:09

graysky
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

@jasonw - Thanks for the tip.  I found it also on a related wiki page now that I have a google target: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … _rendering.

EDIT: went with a setting of 38 and it looks better but not quite the same.  Thanks and solved.

export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=38"

Last edited by graysky (2017-01-08 19:05:21)


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#4 2017-01-08 19:21:24

eschwartz
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

Yeah, apparently it isn't quite the same. Not that I can tell, since I don't care about fonts tongue but cryzed has posted a Gist in IRC with some instructions for migrating and also restoring some of the settings -- a bunch of people have found it very helpful it seems: https://gist.github.com/cryzed/e002e705 … 9e748c5671

Last edited by eschwartz (2017-01-08 19:23:35)


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#5 2017-01-08 19:24:47

Roken
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

I have to say, having removed Infinality, with the exception of having to go up a point size on my desktop font, and despite fears of FF in particular going back to ugly, the font rendering looks much the same to me.


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#6 2017-01-10 10:47:23

SpaceCadet
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

Roken wrote:

I have to say, having removed Infinality, with the exception of having to go up a point size on my desktop font, and despite fears of FF in particular going back to ugly, the font rendering looks much the same to me.

It's not the same at all. Even after tweaking using the tips in this thread and from other places, the font rendering in before and after screenshots looks quite different. If you zoom in to pixel level, you'll notice there are distinct differences in the subpixel antialiasing.

While vanilla freetype2 is "passable" as far as font rendering goes, I clearly prefer infinality.

Last edited by SpaceCadet (2017-01-10 10:59:34)

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#7 2017-01-10 12:23:55

WorMzy
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

Someone on irc wrote this, the latter parts of which which may help get "infinality-like" font rendering.


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#8 2017-01-10 12:45:42

SpaceCadet
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

WorMzy wrote:

Someone on irc wrote this, the latter parts of which which may help get "infinality-like" font rendering.

Already read that. Helps to make the switch to vanilla freetype2, doesn't help to get infinality-like font rendering. It's just some font substitutions, which is something else than actually properly rendering a font, and a script to get java to anti-alias again.

Last edited by SpaceCadet (2017-01-10 12:45:59)

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#9 2017-01-10 18:12:14

Alad
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

To all those people that cling so badly to some old patchset: consider maintaining it instead of making endless complaints on the forums.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … mpty_posts

Last edited by Alad (2017-01-10 18:12:36)


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#10 2017-01-10 22:09:02

SpaceCadet
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

Alad wrote:

To all those people that cling so badly to some old patchset...

I understand that Arch needs to march on, and can't support an old patchset that unfortunately is no longer being maintained, so I'm not clinging to it for the sake of clinging to it (as a matter of fact, infinality is already purged from all my systems).

It's just frustrating that after all these years freetype2 still hasn't caught up with the font rendering quality of infinality (and MacOS and Windows for that matter), and that some people just sweep it under the rug with blanket statements like: "oh infinality is not needed anymore, the quality is just as good with stock freetype2", while it clearly isn't, or with cop out statements like "maintain it yourself then".

As for "https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … mpty_posts", I don't feel addressed by that at all. I'm discussing the topic at hand and offered counter examples as for why the issue has not been resolved for me. So if there are other methods to improve the font rendering of stock freetype2, I would still love to hear them.

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#11 2017-01-10 22:58:45

bart_vv
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

SpaceCadet wrote:

It's just frustrating that after all these years freetype2 still hasn't caught up with the font rendering quality of infinality (and MacOS and Windows for that matter), and that some people just sweep it under the rug with blanket statements like: "oh infinality is not needed anymore, the quality is just as good with stock freetype2", while it clearly isn't

Agreed. We wouldn't need guides in gists if quality was the same with stock.

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#12 2017-01-11 00:17:06

ooo
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

When switching over from [infinality-bundle-fonts], you could/should also copy bohoomil's font-settings for fonts you've installed.
He actually did a lot of work tweaking these, and they make a huge difference with some fonts, e.g. cantarell.

There's also the conf.d/ from fontconfig-infinality with a lot of tweaks, and configs for bohoomil's original font replacement options (combi, free, ms) are also available.

Infinality patches for cairo, freetype and fontconfig are also hosted on the same repo, in case anyone is interested to keep maintaining them for.

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#13 2017-01-11 00:39:39

jasonwryan
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

SpaceCadet wrote:

It's just frustrating that after all these years freetype2 still hasn't caught up with the font rendering quality of infinality (and MacOS and Windows for that matter), and that some people just sweep it under the rug with blanket statements like: "oh infinality is not needed anymore, the quality is just as good with stock freetype2", while it clearly isn't, or with cop out statements like "maintain it yourself then".

It is just as good because upstream merged the features: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freety … e36baebba4 Hanging on to the idea that bohoomil's repo represented some sort of magic or golden age is just sentiment, nothing more. Configure your fonts properly (as bohoomil did) and you will get exactly the same results.

And if your problem is actually with having to configure something for yourself, then either stop whining about it here, or consider another distro.


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#14 2017-01-11 06:09:12

SpaceCadet
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

jasonwryan wrote:

It is just as good because upstream merged the features: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/freety … e36baebba4

Hanging on to the idea that bohoomil's repo represented some sort of magic or golden age is just sentiment, nothing more.

Configure your fonts properly (as bohoomil did) and you will get exactly the same results.

Except that supposed merge is obviously not a complete merge of all infinality features, because it doesn't support the various INFINALITY_FT_* environment variables that you could use to tweak how fonts are rendered.

For instance, INFINALITY_FT_FILTER_PARAMS, which changes how the LCD filter behaves, is not supported. Grepping through the freetype 2.7.1 source, I see that the string "FILTER_PARAMS" is not present.

Then it's no surprise that the end result isn't the same either. On my system I configured all the /etc/fonts/conf.d/ tweaks that were in bohoomil's repo (as someone in this thread helpfully suggested) and I still get vastly different results (even worse than just leaving the defaults actually).

jasonwryan wrote:

And if your problem is actually with having to configure something for yourself, then either stop whining about it here, or consider another distro.

I don't appreciate the attitude. How about you consider being civil, Jason. I don't need your permission to use Arch or to use this support forum for an issue that is bugging me,

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#15 2017-01-11 06:21:52

jasonwryan
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

SpaceCadet wrote:
jasonwryan wrote:

And if your problem is actually with having to configure something for yourself, then either stop whining about it here, or consider another distro.

I don't appreciate the attitude. How about you consider being civil, Jason. I don't need your permission to use Arch or to use this support forum for an issue that is bugging me,

I was being civil. And in any event, my remark was not directed at you, but at the tone of the thread (which is why it was a separate para). Also, I really don't care whether you appreciate my attitude or not. Upstream have pushed a change that breaks an unsupported and unmaintained repo; this is not an isolated occurence. People have two choices, adapt or pick up the job of maintaining said repo/package/whatever. Nowhere in there is an option about clogging the boards with moaning about having to manually write a conf file.


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#16 2017-01-11 06:37:35

SpaceCadet
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

jasonwryan wrote:

in any event, my remark was not directed at you

Other paragraph or not, you used my quote and used the "you" form.

jasonwryan wrote:

Upstream have pushed a change that breaks an unsupported and unmaintained repo; this is not an isolated occurence.

I don't think anyone here is complaining about that. We all know bohoomil's repo wasn't maintained anymore since April 2016, and that it was just a matter of time before it would cause breakage.

jasonwryan wrote:

People have two choices, adapt or pick up the job of maintaining said repo/package/whatever. Nowhere in there is an option about clogging the boards with moaning about having to manually write a conf file.

People are not moaning about writing a conf file. People are "moaning" that the quality of their font rendering has taken a step back with no apparent way to resolve it.

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#17 2017-01-11 06:53:50

jasonwryan
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Re: Without freetype2-infinality, fonts look poor [SOLVED]

There is a way to "resolve it", in fact there are two: maintain the repo or write a conf file. Take your pick.

Oh, that is the third time I have typed that into this thread...

Closing.


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