How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

murpheus40 · 2004-03-15 23:56:45

Hello,

I was using Slackware-9.1 with Dropline and my fonts were great with gnome. A few days ago, I found AL and I felt in love! However, my fonts in gnome desktop is not as beautiful as Slack. I tried to copy the local.conf file from my slack to AL but did not work as expected.

So, is there an easy solution to fix it?

Thanks!

zeppelin · 2004-03-16 00:45:46

hello murpheus40,

do you have the same ttf fonts in AL as you had in Dropline Slackware ( I know Dropline and it uses Windows TTF Fonts ) [ webfonts-1.0-noarch-1dl.tgz ] (ms ships them in .exe format or .cab format )
those fonts are available on the interrnet and it's legal to have them if you have a original version of Windows.
I know you have them original so grab them from here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/drop … z?download

and do

tar -zxvf webfonts-1.0-noarch-1dl.tgz -C /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF

and then I think AL only needs a restart (that would be easier for you) or you can make new fonts.dir and fonts.scale and source them.. [well just restart]

100% free are FreeMono FreeSans and FreeTimes [i think]
Good Luck

cartridge · 2004-03-16 15:41:50

you're complaining about some xft related...
to have that rendering in font you need to enable something when compiling xft, i dont remember what....
i also had this problem, my fonts in dropline were nicer that these i use in arch....but
try to install the font packages, you can get fonts as nice as dropline, but not the same, i remember i used sans in dropline, and it was perfect, and the sans of arch is a little weird, so install all the font packages and try some custom fonts, like bistream vera sans.

skoal · 2004-03-24 22:54:59

murpheus40 wrote:

Hello,
I was using Slackware-9.1 with Dropline and my fonts were great with gnome. A few days ago, I found AL and I felt in love! However, my fonts in gnome desktop is not as beautiful as Slack...
So, is there an easy solution to fix it?
Thanks!

Easy? I'm not quite sure but I believe their is an AL package which has Microsoft truetype fonts. I'm not sure what all that package updates and changes (as far as config files, etc.), but I would give that a shot first. And, if that doesn't work, you can follow the method below. I have MS truetype fonts in all my applications, while running Gnome 2.4/AL 0.6.

* I will assume your Gnome installation is up to date with `pacman -Sy gnome' (or similar), especially since you need the most recent libfreetype2 libs.

1. Get the MS "webfonts" archive from the net. Or, alternatively, you can tar up your MS fonts on your Windows distribution or extract them from your Windows CD with a cab extraction utility.

2. Untar the MS TTF archive file in `/usr/share/fonts'. I used that directory since the `/etc/fonts/fonts.conf' is already setup to look there. You can use/create another directory but that would require modification to `/usr/fonts/local.conf'. Also, some have suggested to unpack the archive in `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF', but the X maintainers recommend against that, for reasons which I won't re-iterate here.

3. From within the `/usr/share/fonts' directory, after unpacking the MS TTF archive, run `mkfontscale', `mkfontdir', and `fc-cache', in that order. 3 files will be created in that directory, `fonts.scale', `fonts.dir', and `fonts.cache-1'.

4. In `/etc/X11/XF86Config', make the following entries under "Section "Files"".

Section "Files"
        FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
EndSection

* Since I run my desktop at a resolution of 1024x768, `xdpyinfo' returns a "resolution: 70x72 dots per inch". Therefore, the `.../75dpi/" font directory comes before the `.../100dpi/` entry in `XF86Config' (as shown above). This is necessary to keep the font scaling proportional to my desktop resolution. If you are running at a higher resolution, you may want to reverse that order in `XF86Config'.

5. In `/etc/X11/XF86Config', comment (#) out "Load "xtt"", and add (if necessary) "Load "freetype"".

Section "Module"
        Load "freetype"
#       Load "xtt"
        Load  "extmod"
        Load  "glx"
#       Load  "dri"
        Load  "dbe"
        Load  "record"
        Load  "xtrap"
        Load  "type1"
        Load  "speedo"
EndSection

* The "xtt" module is the builtin X renderer and not needed. You want the freetype renderer. The comment(ing) out of "Load "dri"" is irrelevant, but specific to my NVIDIA driver requirements. Snipets of my `XF86Config' are shown here for illustration only.

6. Restart your X server and restart Gnome. There are many ways to do this, but a simple reboot will suffice.

* After a reboot, from within Gnome you can open a terminal and run `xfontsel'. Your MS TTF fonts should be visible/usable. Under the menu "fndry" you will see a "Microsoft" entry. Under the menu "fmly" you will see many new TTF entries like "andale mono" which I use for my terminal font (and Linus Torvalds as well, from one of his email posts). If those entries show, you have MS TTF available and ready for configuration/use.

THE FOLLOWING (FINAL) SETUP REQUIREMENTS ARE SUBJECTIVE BUT WORK WELL FOR ME. YOU CAN EXPERIMENT WITH THESE SETTINGS TO YOUR LIKING.

7. From within Gnome, select the "Fonts" application launcher (under the "Preferences" menu). Select the "Details" button, set "Resolution (dpi)" to 72. Once again, I run my desktop at 1024x768, and this gives the proper scaling ratio w.r.t the information gleaned from `xdpyinfo | grep resolution'. Select "Smoothing" as "none" and "Hinting" at "full". Double check that "Font Rendering" is set to "Monochrome" in the main menu of "Font Preferences" (the previous window). Also, for my setup, "Application Font" is "Sans" "12", "Desktop Font" is "Sans" "12", and "Terminal Font" is "Andale Mono" "12" (but I use a custom Terminal profile using "16" and "white on black").

8. Log out of Gnome and log back in. Your eyes will thank your for it.

WEB BROWSER FIREFOX

For my web browser, Firefox, I have the following settings (under "Tools", "General", "Fonts and Colors":

"Proportional", "Serif", and "Sans-Serif" are all set to "Sans-Serif". All my settings for "Size (pixels) and "Minimum Font Size" are set to "12".

Enjoy.

murpheus40 · 2004-03-30 13:14:16

I followed the steps you said and the fonts look better. However, I don't know if it's my eyes, but fonts in slackware-dropline seem cleaner. What I mean is the fonts on my desktop are a bit blurry in AL.

skoal · 2004-03-31 10:40:52

murpheus40 wrote:

I followed the steps you said and the fonts look better. However, I don't know if it's my eyes, but fonts in slackware-dropline seem cleaner. What I mean is the fonts on my desktop are a bit blurry in AL.

My fonts in Gnome and AL are every bit as crisp/clear as when I built my Linux box from scratch (with no distribution), following pretty much the exact same process outlined above.

I guess I would suggest playing with the "Fonts" selection tool in Gnome, and double check that your "Screen Resolution" matches what `xdpyinfo' returns.

* I noticed bluriness too in AL/Gnome until I set the "Font Rendering" to "Monochrome" and turned off "Smoothing". If you have any other settings, Gnome kinda blurs fonts to give it a smoothing effect. I didn't like it and turned it off. Now, my fonts match exactly what I see when I run Windows.

Best of luck to you. I know what a chore on ones eyes the Gnome rendering of fonts can be.

Arch Linux

#1 2004-03-15 23:56:45

How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

#2 2004-03-16 00:45:46

Re: How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

#3 2004-03-16 15:41:50

Re: How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

#4 2004-03-24 22:54:59

Re: How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

#5 2004-03-30 13:14:16

Re: How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

#6 2004-03-31 10:40:52

Re: How to get nice fonts in Gnome??

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