Purty LCD fonts

Ranguvar · 2009-06-25 03:04:15

Big font discussion thread.
This is only for people who have some experience with different alternatives, please, and have LCDs (for the voting)

First, which looks best to you -- the normal font packages, the -lcd ones, -ubuntu ones, -lcd ones, or -cleartype ones? You know -- libxft, freetype2, cairo.

Please also mention any custom font settings, or specifics with different fonts you have noticed, e.g. whether having bitmap fonts enabled is a good idea, etc...

Teoulas · 2009-06-25 17:59:40

I use the *-lcd packages, subpixel anti-aliasing and slight hinting. I've turned hinting off for some Vista fonts (Calibri, Cambria), as they look aliased with any amount of hinting. That's all, I haven't touched the bitmap fonts. *-cleartype packages are more blurry last time I tried them. The *-ubuntu ones look just like the *-lcd ones to me.

Ashren · 2009-06-25 18:17:20

I use these settings:

xft:Sans:antialias=true:pixelsize=11:weight=regular:width=semicondensed:hinting=true:hintstyle=hintslight:rgba=rgb:lcdfilter=lcdlight

With the normal font packages. I think it looks alright.

Last edited by Ashren (2009-06-25 18:19:30)

thayer · 2009-06-25 18:57:10

I recently reverted to aliased fonts and am liking it quite a bit more than antialiased/hinting. I'm still working on a complete solution, but the overall goal is to:

* alias fonts < 14pt
* antialias/hint bold fonts and those that are >= 14pt
* substitute sans/serif fonts that look like crap when aliased with better alternatives
* substitute monospace fonts with dina/terminus bitmaps

Pank · 2009-06-25 22:26:53

A side note: On of the greatest features of freetype2 is the support for ligatures. I am enjoyed by it every time I use a Gnu/Linux-system. (Windows actually also have; at least with the new clear type fonts).

I use the vanilla packages. I could not tell the difference between the lcd/ubuntu package and the vanilla package. I could tell a difference with the cleartype package but I felt performance was decreased.

For urxvt I use monofur (alised). I love it for its osf. For general system fonts I use Lucida Grande. For Emacs I use Dejavu Sans Mono which is very nice. I believe I use one of the new MS cleartype fonts in Firefox to have an uniform font with osf.

For LaTeX I generally enjoy Kpfonts. Palation is almost as nice and distributed as part of the core so I use that as well. One of the most beautiful modern font family is Lucida Bright IMO. AMS Eulor has beautiful.
For small documents were I can 'afford' to use XeLaTeX I use Fontin.

Cheers,
Rasmus

Ranguvar · 2009-06-26 01:50:55

Huh. It seems that the vanilla packages and the Ubuntu ones are nearly identical Just took screenshots and compared -- no difference, at least with my settings.

Right now, I'm antialiasing everything, although this may change soon. I use lcdlight, with medium hinting (may switch back to full). This has the style I like -- crisp and sharp, with minimal fuzziness. I use the bytecode interpreter instead of the autohinter, the latter seems to always produce fuzz, at least with my default application font (DejaVu Sans 10), especially at large sizes. I may eventually switch back to the autohinter on some fonts that aren't behaving well.

What I'm trying to figure out now is why the Dina fonts just look like basic Sans... http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=14630
It's not that they're bitmaps, I don't think (Helvetica works fine, I messed around in /etc/fonts/ to make sure bitmaps aren't removed), and I have another BDF-format font working, Unifont.

dunc · 2009-06-26 02:44:17

*-lcd, by a country mile. I read up on the technical reasons for this (it's the only one that renders each glyph at the subpixel level, rather than simply the anti-aliasing), but that was only after deciding that it looked better subjectively.

I've never tried the *-ubuntu packages for Arch, but - as anyone who saw the thread will know - I recently used the distro itself for a week or so while my regular system was... indisposed. I couldn't tell the difference from vanilla, to be honest. (In fact, just to see if it would work, I took the *-lcd libcairo from my Arch install and copied it to Ubuntu. Ugly, and I'll no doubt end up in the Bad Fire for my actions, but it worked. Much more legible.)

I remember using *-cleartype a while back and thinking it was pretty good, but I haven't done a side-by-side comparison with *-lcd.

thayer · 2009-06-26 02:57:26

Ranguvar wrote:

What I'm trying to figure out now is why the Dina fonts just look like basic Sans... http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=14630
It's not that they're bitmaps, I don't think (Helvetica works fine, I messed around in /etc/fonts/ to make sure bitmaps aren't removed), and I have another BDF-format font working, Unifont.

You probably need to add the local font dir to your Files section in xorg.conf:

Section "Files"
...
    FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/artwiz-fonts"
    FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/local"
...
EndSection

Ranguvar · 2009-06-26 04:24:18

That can't be it -- I do _see_ the Dina font, it's just that it looks like Sans when in use. I'm not using a "Files" section at all. I can also use other fonts in /usr/share/fonts/local. Thanks, though.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-06-26 04:24:33)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-25 03:04:15

Purty LCD fonts

#2 2009-06-25 17:59:40

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#3 2009-06-25 18:17:20

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#4 2009-06-25 18:57:10

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#5 2009-06-25 22:26:53

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#6 2009-06-26 01:50:55

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#7 2009-06-26 02:44:17

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#8 2009-06-26 02:57:26

Re: Purty LCD fonts

#9 2009-06-26 04:24:18

Re: Purty LCD fonts

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