[Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

monsieur moche · 2017-06-27 17:09:00

Hi Arch users,

I've just reinstalled Arch after a couple of months away, and I can't configure fontconfig properly.

Here are two comparisons pics:
- the first one on Ubuntu https://i.imgur.com/v5B3APX.png
- the second one on Arch https://i.imgur.com/o8xKRQ5.png

The font rendering is much crispier in the first pic. I'd like to achieve that. IIRC, font rendering wasn't that bad on my previous Arch (same PC).

I thought it was only a matter of hinting, but setting it to medium or even full doesn't fix the blurriness.

Here is my fonts.conf:

florian@flobox:~$ cat .config/fontconfig/fonts.conf 
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
            <const>none</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
            <const>hintfull</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
            <const>lcdnone</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>

Global conf.d contains these presets:

florian@flobox:~$ ls /etc/fonts/conf.d/
10-hinting-slight.conf                 51-local.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf       57-dejavu-sans.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf  57-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf      57-dejavu-serif.conf
20-unhint-small-vera.conf              60-latin.conf
30-metric-aliases.conf                 65-fonts-persian.conf
30-urw-aliases.conf                    65-nonlatin.conf
31-cantarell.conf                      69-gnu-free-fonts.conf
40-nonlatin.conf                       69-unifont.conf
45-latin.conf                          80-delicious.conf
49-sansserif.conf                      90-synthetic.conf
50-user.conf                           README

I don't have a .config/fontconfig/conf.d.

Also, hinting is set to full and antialiasing to grayscale in gnome-tweak-tool.

My video card is a Nvidia GTX 960 and I use proprietary drivers.

Here is my xorg.conf:

florian@flobox:~$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 367.57  (buildmeister@swio-display-x64-rhel04-13)  Mon Oct  3 21:42:19 PDT 2016

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceCompositionPipeline = On }" #fix tearing
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

My font packages:

florian@flobox:~$ pacman -Qs font
local/cantarell-fonts 1:0.0.25-3
    Cantarell font family
local/fontconfig 2.12.3-1
    A library for configuring and customizing font access
local/fontforge 20161012-4
    Outline and bitmap font editor
local/fontsproto 2.1.3-2
    X11 font extension wire protocol
local/freetype2 2.8-2
    Font rasterization library
local/gnome-font-viewer 3.24.0-1 (gnome)
    A font viewer utility for GNOME
local/gnu-free-fonts 20120503-4
    A free family of scalable outline fonts
local/gsfonts 20160531-3
    URW+ Postscript core35 fonts
local/libfontenc 1.1.3-1
    X11 font encoding library
local/libotf 0.9.13-2
    OpenType Font library
local/libxfont 1.5.2-1
    X11 font rasterisation library
local/libxfont2 2.0.1-1
    X11 font rasterisation library
local/libxft 2.3.2-1
    FreeType-based font drawing library for X
local/noto-fonts 20170428-1
    Google Noto TTF fonts
local/t1lib 5.1.2-6
    Library for generating character- and string-glyphs from Adobe Type 1 fonts
local/ttf-bitstream-vera 1.10-11
    Bitstream Vera fonts.
local/ttf-dejavu 2.37-1
    Font family based on the Bitstream Vera Fonts with a wider range of
    characters
local/ttf-freefont 20120503-4
    Set of free outline fonts covering the Unicode character set
local/ttf-liberation 2.00.1-7
    Red Hats Liberation fonts.
local/ttf-linux-libertine 5.3.0-3
    Serif (Libertine) and Sans Serif (Biolinum) OpenType fonts with large
    Unicode coverage
local/ttf-ms-fonts 2.0-10
    Core TTF Fonts from Microsoft
local/ttf-vista-fonts 1-8
    Microsoft Vista True Type Fonts
local/xorg-bdftopcf 1.0.5-1 (xorg xorg-apps)
    Convert X font from Bitmap Distribution Format to Portable Compiled Format
local/xorg-font-util 1.3.1-1 (xorg-fonts xorg)
    X.Org font utilities
local/xorg-font-utils 7.6-4
    Transitional package depending on xorg font utilities
local/xorg-fonts-100dpi 1.0.3-3 (xorg)
    X.org 100dpi fonts
local/xorg-fonts-75dpi 1.0.3-3 (xorg)
    X.org 75dpi fonts
local/xorg-fonts-alias 1.0.3-1
    X.org font alias files
local/xorg-fonts-encodings 1.0.4-4 (xorg-fonts xorg)
    X.org font encoding files
local/xorg-fonts-misc 1.0.3-5
    X.org misc fonts
local/xorg-mkfontdir 1.0.7-8 (xorg xorg-apps)
    Create an index of X font files in a directory
local/xorg-mkfontscale 1.1.2-1 (xorg-apps xorg)
    Create an index of scalable font files for X

Help me please?

Last edited by monsieur moche (2017-06-28 17:40:04)

goumba · 2017-06-27 23:25:41

Mine looked decent until a recent upgrade, then started looking bad. Don't know what files changed.

I used the configuration shown here, and saw a vast improvement. Give it a try:

http://worldofgnome.org/how-to-greatly- … fedora-20/

Last edited by goumba (2017-06-27 23:26:25)

mrlamud · 2017-06-27 23:53:20

Try this.

#~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
......
        <!-- Should be enabled by default -->
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
            <const>hintslight</const>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
            <const>lcddefault</const>
        </edit>
...

circleface · 2017-06-28 02:06:47

Are you sure you are using the same font between both operating systems? Also, I doubt you will ever get it looking exactly the same because I think Ubuntu tweaks the rendering a bit, though that may not be the case anymore. I know in the past, Ubuntu did indeed tweak the rendering.

monsieur moche · 2017-06-28 16:35:54

@goumba @mrlamud
Thank you but none of your confs improve the rendering.

@circleface
All I can say is that both systems use the same home directory. I don't see any font redirection in the global fonts.conf of my Ubuntu. Selecting other fonts in gnome-tweak-tool doesn't help anyway.
It's okay if it doesn't look exactly the same. All I want is at least a proper hinting, i.e. that my "l"s are rendered as 1px wide black vertical lines. Surely we can achieve this without using Ubuntu's freetype, right?

V1del · 2017-06-28 16:42:15

Have you tried playing around with the different values in /etc/profile.d/freetype2.sh ? They will also have a noticable impact. (Relog after changing to see your changes and note that you can't combine them, only one of them should be active at a time)

Last edited by V1del (2017-06-28 16:43:10)

monsieur moche · 2017-06-28 17:39:43

Wow. I've just changed the interpreter version to 35 and the rendering is waaaay better.

florian@flobox:~$ cat /etc/profile.d/freetype2.sh 
# Subpixel hinting mode can be chosen by setting the right TrueType interpreter
# version. The available settings are:
#
#     truetype:interpreter-version=35  # Classic mode (default in 2.6)
#     truetype:interpreter-version=38  # Infinality mode
#     truetype:interpreter-version=40  # Minimal mode (default in 2.7)
#
# There are more properties that can be set, separated by whitespace. Please
# refer to the FreeType documentation for details.

# Uncomment and configure below
export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35"

There's still some tweaking to do for some fonts (e.g. the one used by Facebook), but otherwise it's just perfect.

Thank you very much V1del .

Arch Linux

#1 2017-06-27 17:09:00

[Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

#2 2017-06-27 23:25:41

Re: [Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

#3 2017-06-27 23:53:20

Re: [Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

#4 2017-06-28 02:06:47

Re: [Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

#5 2017-06-28 16:35:54

Re: [Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

#6 2017-06-28 16:42:15

Re: [Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

#7 2017-06-28 17:39:43

Re: [Solved] Bad font rendering under Gnome 3 (with comparison pics)

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