[SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

DCx86 · 2020-05-12 07:32:36

I reinstall Linux and now the fonts look pixelated in the terminal.

What have I tried:
1. Switching to a different terminal but both xterm and st (simple terminal) have the same result.
2. Installing Nerd fonts
3. Switching to oh-my-zsh and using powerlevel10k

To me it seems like it's not the missing fonts or but rather some type of anti-aliasing that is not working properly.
Tried to read font configuration on archlinux page but it's a bit overwhelming, not sure if I should try everything that is there or only some things.
Also I didn't have any issue like this with my previous archlinux install and not sure where I messed up, maybe during xorg configuration?

I see that the ouput of grep /fonts ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log is:

[   215.336] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/misc".
[   215.336]    (Run 'mkfontdir' on "/usr/share/fonts/misc").
[   215.336] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/TTF" does not exist.
[   215.336] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF" does not exist.
[   215.336] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/Type1" does not exist.
[   215.336] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/misc".
[   215.336]    (Run 'mkfontdir' on "/usr/share/fonts/misc").
[   215.336] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/TTF" does not exist.
[   215.336] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF" does not exist.
[   215.336] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/Type1" does not exist.
        /usr/share/fonts/100dpi,
        /usr/share/fonts/75dpi,
        /usr/share/fonts/100dpi,
        /usr/share/fonts/75dpi

Which is a bit weird since I manualy checked for the /usr/share/fonts folder and it does exist.

❯ ls /usr/share/fonts
100dpi  75dpi  adobe-source-code-pro  cantarell  cyrillic  encodings  gnu-free  liberation  misc  nerd-fonts-complete  noto  TTF  util

I also tried to run $ xset fp rehash with no positive result.

Do you have any idea why this happened and how to fix it? Thanks.

Last edited by DCx86 (2020-05-13 09:26:23)

jasonwryan · 2020-05-12 07:38:42

Install some actual fonts. DejaVu, for example.

Also, switching to OMZ is not, in any universe, going to fix anything. Ever.

V1del · 2020-05-12 07:39:40

If it's just in the terminal and not xorg in general properly configure your terminal: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xterm#Fonts

DCx86 · 2020-05-12 07:54:04

jasonwryan wrote:

Install some actual fonts. DejaVu, for example.

I just installed ttf-dejavu package but same results, also I think I got all fonts now when I installed the https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nerd-fonts-complete/.

jasonwryan wrote:

Also, switching to OMZ is not, in any universe, going to fix anything. Ever

Yeah, somewhere deep down I knew it can't possibly make a difference but was hopping that by installing the nerd-fonts that powerlevel10k is requiring will solve the issue. Now I don't think fonts are the issue.

Last edited by DCx86 (2020-05-12 08:25:58)

DCx86 · 2020-05-12 08:25:16

V1del wrote:

If it's just in the terminal and not xorg in general properly configure your terminal: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xterm#Fonts

So you think it's the default font my problem?

DCx86 · 2020-05-12 08:50:38

Okay, I made some progress. Inside st/config.h I changed antialias to be true.

static char *font = "Liberation Mono: pixelsize:12:antialias=true:autohint=true

It is a huge improvement, but some p10k borderlines are still a bit off.

Trilby · 2020-05-12 12:46:36

DCx86 wrote:

somewhere deep down I knew [OMZ] can't possibly make a difference...

Oh, it makes a difference. Just never a good one. OMZ should come with a surgeon general's warning. OMZ is known to cause all sorts of riduculously unpredictable and hard to diagnose problems and is hazardous to your computer's health.

DCx86 · 2020-05-12 13:29:31

Trilby wrote:

Oh, it makes a difference. Just never a good one. OMZ should come with a surgeon general's warning. OMZ is known to cause all sorts of riduculously unpredictable and hard to diagnose problems and is hazardous to your computer's health.

Are you being sarcastic? can't really tell. What would you suggest, to use plain zsh? That will work fine for me since I'm aiming for a minimal setup and OMZ is not quite that.
Also, I found out that there are some patches for st that I can apply to fix some of the issues, like https://st.suckless.org/patches/font2/ .

Trilby · 2020-05-12 13:34:11

No. I'm not being sarcastic, hyperbolic to a degree, but not at all sarcastic. OMZ will likely break something in a horrible way on your system. It's only a question of when.

As for what I'd suggest: I'd suggest not installing it. It's not some important tool for which you should consider an alternative. Just don't use it.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-05-12 13:36:18)

DCx86 · 2020-05-13 07:23:49

What is your shell of choice Trilby? or which would you recommend to try out?
Thanks

jasonwryan · 2020-05-13 08:33:31

Zsh is a wonderful modern shell. As long as you don't fuck it up with OMZ.

DCx86 · 2020-05-13 09:25:50

Got it, thank you!

Trilby · 2020-05-13 11:47:15

OMZ != Zsh.

And I'm quite sure you would not like my shell of choice. While I have my reasons for preferring it, I have no reason to recommend it to anyone else over a suitable shell like zsh.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-05-13 11:49:57)

seth · 2020-05-13 12:57:15

ash? There're many reasons to use busybox, but "this is the most convenient ant powerfull shell" isn't one I'd put in the list ;-)
But then there's fish, the friendly interactive shell that doesn't support most of the syntax stuff that makes life easier…

@DCx86, it's zsh or bash for the majority of users. Everything else is nichè.
If you want a way to quickly "enhance" zsh (add a lot of features w/o understanding what you're doing) that is NOT a complete chaotic catastrophe, have a look at the grml-zsh-config package.
But while it won't screw your system like OMZ, it'll still add some cruft you don't want and miss some nice features you might be interested in.
You could use it as base to carve and build your preferred config on.

On a related note, I ended up being quite happy w/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/zsh- … hting-git/

Trilby · 2020-05-13 13:04:46

seth wrote:

ash? There're many reasons to use busybox, but "this is the most convenient ant powerfull shell" isn't one I'd put in the list ;-)

That is my list. When almost every tool one would commonly use in a script or interactive shell can be built in to a single static binary so that all pipelines using sed, or awk, or countless other tools do not require loading external binaries or even launching additional subshells ... it has a measurable and often substantial impact on performance.

No external binaries:

$ type time sed awk grep bc nc top init
time is time
sed is sed
awk is awk
grep is grep
bc is bc
nc is nc
top is top
init is init

But like I said, this is my project for myself. I'd be happy to help anyone else acheive similar ends, but I'd not recommend it to most. Especially not to someone who was interested in OMZ as that suggests their priorities are very very different from mine.

On topic, grml can acheive some of the similar end goals as OMZ. While I'd suggest just learing about your shell and creating your own configs, if you really want a prefabbed system, grml - at very least - is not a completely broken and destructive one.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-05-13 13:09:49)

DCx86 · 2020-05-13 15:47:25

Wow, thank you @Tribly and @seth for all the good info, it helps me a lot.

It's two years since I switch to linux. At first it was overwhelming and I tried not to fiddle to much with anything out of fear of breaking stuff, even though, every day I managed to learn something new and it's been an amazing journey!
Last week I made a big step and moved to DWM. I also decided to get a notebook and write down all steps I make, so far it helped me a lot in not geting lost in what I have done or how I've done it.
I'm looking forward to learn best practices and getting my hands dirty in configs. OMZ was def not one of them, just my past habit and desperate solution of fixing the pixelated font problem.

I totally agree and think that I should do my own zsh configurations. This manual I found on grml website https://grml.org/zsh/zsh-lovers.pdf looks really good and I also got the ZSH archwiki page to help me out. I think I'm on the right track now.

Arch Linux

#1 2020-05-12 07:32:36

[SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#2 2020-05-12 07:38:42

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#3 2020-05-12 07:39:40

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#4 2020-05-12 07:54:04

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#5 2020-05-12 08:25:16

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#6 2020-05-12 08:50:38

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#7 2020-05-12 12:46:36

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#8 2020-05-12 13:29:31

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#9 2020-05-12 13:34:11

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#10 2020-05-13 07:23:49

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#11 2020-05-13 08:33:31

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#12 2020-05-13 09:25:50

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#13 2020-05-13 11:47:15

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#14 2020-05-13 12:57:15

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#15 2020-05-13 13:04:46

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

#16 2020-05-13 15:47:25

Re: [SOLVED] Fonts in terminal look pixelated.

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