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#1 2003-08-30 00:48:57

jlowell
Member
Registered: 2003-08-10
Posts: 270

Fonts, Schmonts

OK, I'm going to be completely straight up. The appearance of the fonts in the Mozilla package that comes standard issue with Arch Linux at the moment is below par, purely and simply. Even the rendering of the text on the Arch Home Page is poor. Why that might be is a mystery to me and getting an answer to that question is the reason I've posted, of course.

Here are some of the facts and I offer some of them not to make invideous comparisons but simply to provide background that will highlight the issue:

1. First, I've finally found a solution to the menu/toolbar font size problem that I'd brought here earlier in the week. As it turned out, it was absolutely essential that I edit userChrome.css in order to restore these fonts to the size they enjoyed naturally in Mozilla 1.3.1. I mean if it ain't broke don't fix it, but in transitioning to version 1.4, the Mozilla people certainly lost their way on this one. Anyway, the toolbars are fixed so any connection between past font troubles and present ones is a matter of coincidence.

2. I run a number of distros on this box, all arranged fairly similarly so that I can get a feel for their differences, both positive and negative. One of them is Gentoo, which, for me and for many others, has been an absolute pleasure to use. Comparing the appearance of the fonts as they render in Mozilla in Gentoo and Arch gives one cause for concern. To the best of my knowledge, I've got the same XFree86 and the same font packages on the two distros. I did nothing special during installation in either case. How to account for the differences entirely escapes me. There were the same font type selections made in Preferences yet the text on the Arch Home Page renders pathetically in this distro.

I know nothing about fonts. I consider myself fortunate that I can even spull fontz. Can someone point me in the direction of a solution?

jlowell

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#2 2003-08-30 02:59:43

Toth
Member
Registered: 2002-12-04
Posts: 82

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

First you need to make sure that your TTF are correctly installed.  Go to the font properties in Mozilla and make sure that fonts like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, and Bitstream Vera * show up. If not, well, that is your problem.  If they show up, then it might be an AA setting. I'm not sure. If you could post a screenshot of what a website looks for you under Arch (and under Gentoo if possible) it would help alot since the look of fonts is very subjective.

For reference, here is Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 rendering the Arch Linux site for me. Mozilla 1.4 renders it identically.

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#3 2003-08-30 04:41:28

jlowell
Member
Registered: 2003-08-10
Posts: 270

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Yet again, Toth to the rescue, eh? How ya doin, guy?  smile

When you say

Go to the font properties in Mozilla and make sure that fonts like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, and Bitstream Vera * show up.

I assume you mean in Mozilla, Edit -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts and check for them in the drop-down menus that appear there. Am I riight? If so, there are no Verdana or Bitstream Veras listed. But they're not listed in the Gentoo drop-downs either. Do I need to install these fonts to improve Arch's rendering? I don't need them for Gentoo.

As to the screen shot, you flatter me. I've never volunteered or been asked for one before, and, frankly, would not know how to provide one without some instructions. In the absence of this kind of help let it suffice to say that the difference appears most marked on that part of the Arch Home Page which shows the dates for the Current Package Lists. In Arch they appear quite uneven, dark in spots, light in spots. In Gentoo they are even and unvaried.  This lack of consistency is my biggest concern with the way the Arch fonts appear; they don't even come close to what you've shown me of your own desktop. Incidently, I'm using only a WM here for both distros, no DE.

jlowell

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#4 2003-08-30 13:21:12

Toth
Member
Registered: 2002-12-04
Posts: 82

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Ok, well, first of all to take a screenshot, type this:

$ import -window root ss.png
$ convert ss.png ss.jpg

I use Gnome, and the Gnome SS tool makes it easy to take a SS of just a window.

As for the fonts not showing up. I am going to assume that you have the ms core fonts and bitstream vera font packages installed? If so, check whether your version of Mozilla is built with support for Xft or not. To do this type "about:buildconfig" in the addressbar (without quotes). Look at the very bottom and you'll see a long string of the form --enable-something etc. Look for --enable-xft. If you're using 1.3.1, chances are it isn't enabled. It is in version 1.4 in the AL repositories. (Also do this in Gentoo's and report that).

If Xft is enabled but the fonts aren't showing up then the fonts are not properly installed. If Xft is not enabled, then that is your problem and why Mozilla cannot see TTF.

With a little more information we can figure this out. Before I got my Windows TTF working in Linux, they were all ugly as sin to me wink

Edit: I believe the import and convert commands are part of imagemagick. If you don't have it installed, install that package.

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#5 2003-09-04 06:20:51

jlowell
Member
Registered: 2003-08-10
Posts: 270

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Toth,

First of all, my sincerest apologies to you for having taken so long to get back to these font problems we've been discussing. What with the holiday weekend (I haven't had a decent break from work at all this year) and some thoroughly distracting client matters earlier in the week, GNU/Linux has had to take a decided second place recently.

Anyway, some progress to report. A review of some posts you've made to font questions I've raised here in the past, specifically an earlier problem with XFree86 not initiating, gave me the impetus to run

fc-cache -fv

and to check the status of certain font directories. The update suceeded and the directories were in order. Additionally, I ran

pacman -S ttf-bitream-vera

and

pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts

rebooted and was happy to see a very distinct and positive change in the quality of the font rendering in Mozilla and elsewhere. What continues to strike me as odd, however, is that it was necessary for me to install these fonts to get this level of quality in Arch whereas  no similar such step was required with Gentoo. I still can't account for that difference. The rendering of the same fonts under the same circumstances resulted in two entirely different outcomes. Strange.

Anyway, I did run

about:buildconfig

in Arch (Mozilla 1.4) and Gentoo (Mozilla 1.3) and, as you suggested , xft was enabled in 1.4 but not in 1.3. So at least I'm able to answer that question for you. I've decided not to post a screen shot, however, since I'd have to remove the new fonts to reproduce the earlier difficiencies at this juncture. Now none of these comments should be construed in such a way as to give the impression that I've attained a kind of font nirvana, I haven't. There  are still imperfections noticable even with these fonts but what is clear now is that tweaking alone may result in the needed improvements whereas earlier, fundamental corrections needed to be made.

Let me ask you this question, though, Toth: How does one get anti-aliasing with Arch fonts in Mozilla? What has to be done to  make that kind of alteration possible?

jlowell

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#6 2003-09-04 12:43:04

Toth
Member
Registered: 2002-12-04
Posts: 82

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

jlowell wrote:

Let me ask you this question, though, Toth: How does one get anti-aliasing with Arch fonts in Mozilla? What has to be done to  make that kind of alteration possible?

Well, there are two possibilities. The easiest way (and the way I have done it) is just to use Arch's Mozilla 1.4 with Xft enabled. This should automatically anti-alias your fonts. If it doesn't, then it is an Xft setup problem. Let me know and we can try to help with that.

If you choose for whatever reason to use 1.3 w/o Xft, then type about:config in the address bar of Mozilla. This will pull up several Mozilla settings which cannot otherwise be easily set. Scroll down to font.FreeType2.autohinted and font.FreeType2.enable. They should both be disabled by default. Enable them. (You may also need to disable font.FreeType2.unhinted, but I am not sure on that). This should cause Mozilla to anti-alias your fonts. You may have to restart it for the settings to take effect.

Also, if you are using an Xft enabled version of Mozilla (e.g. 1.4 in Arch) most fonts may in fact not be using the high quality MS or Bitstream fonts until you have properly setup a /etc/fonts/local.conf file. Those font packages may have done this for you, I am not sure since I installed the fonts manually before the packages were added. If you have a local.conf file on your system, post that and we can go from there.

Finally, I'm not sure why your default fonts look so good in Gentoo. I used Gentoo for 2-3 weeks last february I think before I switched back to Slack and my fonts looked utterly horrible until I pulled over the fonts from my Win2k machine. Maybe they've done something to improve that -- I have no idea.

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#7 2003-09-05 02:03:09

jlowell
Member
Registered: 2003-08-10
Posts: 270

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Toth,

Well, there are two possibilities. The easiest way (and the way I have done it) is just to use Arch's Mozilla 1.4 with Xft enabled. This should automatically anti-alias your fonts. If it doesn't, then it is an Xft setup problem. Let me know and we can try to help with that.

Well, what's clear in this connection is that I'm using Mozilla 1.4 in Arch alright and with xft enabled. Truthfully, I'm not sure that the fonts aren't being anti-aliased, I just didn't know how to make that determination.  Is there some way to know for sure?


Also, if you are using an Xft enabled version of Mozilla (e.g. 1.4 in Arch) most fonts may in fact not be using the high quality MS or Bitstream fonts until you have properly setup a /etc/fonts/local.conf file. Those font packages may have done this for you, I am not sure since I installed the fonts manually before the packages were added. If you have a local.conf file on your system, post that and we can go from there.

I do not have a /etc/fonts/local.conf so the font packages I added apparently don't create one as they're installed. I do have a /etc/fonts/font.conf but am not sure whether that's an irrelevancy.


Finally, I'm not sure why your default fonts look so good in Gentoo. I used Gentoo for 2-3 weeks last february I think before I switched back to Slack and my fonts looked utterly horrible until I pulled over the fonts from my Win2k machine. Maybe they've done something to improve that -- I have no idea.

You know this whole font thing only emerged as an issue for me when Mozilla 1.4 appeared, and that is true of Gentoo as well. As a matter of fact it was when I "upgraded" from 1.3.1 to 1.4 in Gentoo that the problem made itself known in the first place. But, in that case, the problem manifested itself primarily as absurdly small toolbar and menu fonts but you already know that and I've solved most of that by editing userChrome.css to increase the font-size to 14pt and changing the font-family to helvetica. Then the tool bars in 1.4 present in exactly the same way they do naturally in 1.3.1. The popup windows are not effected by this editing, however, and still look too small. I haven't taken the time to investigate how they can be identified in userChrome.css so as to change them as well. Frankly, I wish they hadn't tinkered with the 1.3.1 arrangement, it was just fine as it was. But there's always someone who thinks that change is an end in itself, eh? :?

Ultimately, my solution with Gentoo was to "unmerge" 1.4 and downgrade to 1.3.1. Doing that suited me just fine. You can do that kind of thing with Gentoo but apparently not with Arch. I tried running makepkg -bcis after having copied a 1.3.1 build script from Arch's cvs. Unfortunately, the wheels came off and the build self destructed. Theoretically it shouldn't have, but it did. Too bad, I'd probably been using 1.3.1 quite happily in Arch today. Maybe its God punishing me.  smile

Anyway, what should we be doing about /etc/fonts/local.conf, creating it?

My continuing gratitude for having benefit of your very considerable font background, Toth. And, incidently, aren't you using xfce4? I've thought about the possiblity of looking at it but was concerned that it might add too much bloat to a fairly light and quick concept here.

jlowell

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#8 2003-09-05 02:40:48

Toth
Member
Registered: 2002-12-04
Posts: 82

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Here is my /etc/fonts/local.conf. I'll break it up and try to explain what each section does.

--update: I've finally gotten AA at normal sizes to look good, so I'm adjusting the post accordingly

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>

Standard header. Nothing much of interest.

<!--
        <match target="font">
                <test qual="all" name="rgba">
                        <const>unknown</const>
                </test>
                <edit name="rgba" mode="assign"><const>rgb</const></edit>
        </match>
-->

This part enabled subpixel rendering. If you don't use an LCD you should probably omit this.
--update: I've commented this section out and just used the Gnome font preferences dialog to select the rendering type which seems to look a bit better.

        <alias>
                <family>serif</family>
                <prefer>
            <family>Times New Roman</family>
<!--
                        <family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>
-->
                </prefer>
        </alias>
        <alias>
                <family>sans-serif</family>
                <prefer>
            <family>Verdana</family>
                </prefer>
        </alias>
        <alias>
                <family>monospace</family>
                <prefer>
<!--
            <family>Courier New</family>
-->
                        <family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family>
                </prefer>
        </alias>

These parts are the most important for you. This is where I tell Xft what fonts to use for "generic" fonts. For example, if a program requests "serif" Xft will use Times New Roman. If "sans-serif" is requested, it will use Verdana. So on and so forth.

<!--
<match target="font">
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="more"><int>7</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="less"><int>14</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq"><string>Arial</string></test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>false</bool></edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="more"><int>7</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="less"><int>14</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq"><string>Verdana</string></test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>false</bool></edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="more"><int>7</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="less"><int>14</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq"><string>Times New Roman</string></test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>false</bool></edit>
</match>
-->

This portion tells Xft not to antialias certain fonts when they are of a normal size (7-14). I really don't like the way these fonts look when AA'd at these sizes. But at smaller and larger sizes they look fine. Also, certain fonts are ugly without AA such as the Bitstream Vera fonts. They are beautiful when AA'd though. You can leave this part out if these fonts look good AA'd to you. All personal preference.

--update: The above section has been commented out since AA now looks good for me at these sizes wink

<!--
<match target="font">
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="more"><int>7</int></test>
    <test qual="any" name="size" compare="less"><int>14</int></test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>false</bool></edit>
</match>
-->

This part would tell Xft not to AA any normal sized fonts, but I have commented out. As mentioned, certain fonts look horrible without AA.

</fontconfig>

Marks the end of the file. Nothing of interest ;p

This should give you a good basis for good font rendering on your system.

As for XFce4, no, I don't use it any longer. I use Gnome. I did use XFce4 for a few months (even wrote the original battery plugin for it) but I finally gave Gnome a try and rid myself of the delusions that it is bloated. It performs great on my laptop and takes up less than 200M of disk space.  If that is "bloated," I think I can deal with that.

Now that I have that mini-rant out of my system, XFce4 is a great environment. I highly recommend it, especially if you don't think you need or want a full blown environment like KDE/Gnome, but are looking for something more complete than *box.  It's very lightweight, but very elegant. I love the simplicity of it. It looks good, and it is fast. It started up as quickly as Openbox did for me, and Xfwm4 is amazing. I may end up replacing Metacity with Xfwm4 in Gnome. It doesn't do full maximization, but its window placement algorithm is simply amazing.

-Toth

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#9 2003-09-08 14:01:37

galen
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2003-07-02
Posts: 135
Website

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

well what about xfs?
should not the server be running?
my default settings do NOT have xfs running on boot

I've added xfs to my rc.local
xfs -daemon
and it runs under port 7100

I've editted my
/etc/X11/XF86config

and removed Load  font modules
and added below to the Section "Files"

# for XFS server
  FontPath      "unix/:7100"

but fonts still display poorly

any suggestions?


Off to using Peanut and Slackware, no hard feelings but I need my CD to burn, PDA and scanner to connect and arch won't do it.

[img]http://www.flightsimhq.org/images/war-is-bushit_s.jpg[/img]

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#10 2003-09-08 14:30:27

Toth
Member
Registered: 2002-12-04
Posts: 82

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

That depends in which applications the fonts display poorly. I don't run xfs, and have no experience with it.

If the problem is in GTK+2 programs, they use Xft to handle fonts, so you will want to play with /etc/fonts/local.conf. (see my above post)

If the problem is with GTK+1 programs (or most others--motif, etc.), they use the font directories specified in XF86Config (or xfs).

I'm unfamiliar with QT, but I believe QT3 apps use Xft while QT2 apps do not.

What programs in particular do your fonts not look good in?

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#11 2003-09-08 14:43:57

galen
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2003-07-02
Posts: 135
Website

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

all display managers and mozilla look terrible

Gaim gtk+2 also looks bad


Off to using Peanut and Slackware, no hard feelings but I need my CD to burn, PDA and scanner to connect and arch won't do it.

[img]http://www.flightsimhq.org/images/war-is-bushit_s.jpg[/img]

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#12 2003-09-08 14:52:59

galen
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2003-07-02
Posts: 135
Website

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

this seems to be working..
copying the ttf-ms-fonts over to /TTF folder
then upgrading the cache


Off to using Peanut and Slackware, no hard feelings but I need my CD to burn, PDA and scanner to connect and arch won't do it.

[img]http://www.flightsimhq.org/images/war-is-bushit_s.jpg[/img]

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#13 2003-09-08 15:04:47

Toth
Member
Registered: 2002-12-04
Posts: 82

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

First, make sure that the ttf-ms-fonts and ttf-bitstream-vera packages are installed. They will give you good looking truetype fonts. (You may want to install ttmkfdir2 first since the ms-fonts package uses it -- it should probably be a dependency)

Next, run fc-cache -fv as root. This will update fontconfig's font cache. The fonts should now be available in GTK2 applications and others that use Xft (KDE3, etc.).

To check this, go into gaim preferences under fonts, and look through the font list. You should see fonts like Bitstream Vera Sans, Arial, Verdana, and Times New Roman installed. If you don't then the fonts aren't properly installed for some reason.

If these fonts are installed, then everything probably looks much better. If not, refer to my above post about /etc/fonts/local.conf, specifically the section about selecting preferred fonts should help.

If none of this helps, a screenshot showing the problem could help.

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#14 2003-09-09 06:41:41

Ghost Dawg
Member
From: Third Stone from the Sun
Registered: 2002-10-28
Posts: 47

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Thnx Toth, this was very helpful to me also. I was trying to figure out how to get my fonts to look much better.

One question is why wasn't this done during installation of the OS? Nothing against AL or any other distro but why doesn't this be done during install?

The average Joe Sixpack wouldn't have any notion on how to do all this to get good looking fonts.

Just a thought!  roll


Drink Pepsi, the new generation, get Linux!

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#15 2003-09-14 11:15:45

hkctr
Member
Registered: 2003-09-10
Posts: 26

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Vancouverite -

I know many people that use RedHat not because they like RedHat, but because they like the way it looks. The few lines above added to fonts.conf make all the difference in the world.  Why isn't this tip more well known?

Personally, I haven't decided if I I like it or not but I'm glad I have the choice.
Thanks

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#16 2003-09-15 01:40:05

jlowell
Member
Registered: 2003-08-10
Posts: 270

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Vancouverite,

Ah yes, the ubiquitous jlowell, font thread starter of the very first rank.  smile

I, too, am a grateful, recovering Red Hat user, Vancouvrite, albeit one that's pragmatic enough to make use of something they've authored as long as I'm not required to get too close to their so-called "community"in the bargain. As for Gentoo, a fine distro with equally fine people. The thread you're referring to over there was titled "Fonts In Mozilla, Oy!" if I recall and, at the time, rather than implement the excellent advice I'd been given - it involved more work than I then had the time to do - I downgraded to mozilla 1.3.1 and continue to use it in Gentoo together with fluxbox. Something happened when mozilla 1.4 came along that made using it with a WM alone more than a little problematic and that remains true to this day. Mozilla 1.3.1 offers none of these problems. I suppose its the quintessential example of the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it principle. Anyway, thanks for bringing this episode back to memory. Enjoy Arch Linux; I am.

jlowell

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#17 2003-09-16 05:10:24

jlowell
Member
Registered: 2003-08-10
Posts: 270

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

Vancouverite,

I've inserted your Red Hat snipette into /etc/fonts/fonts.conf just before the unicode section as indicated so as to gauge its effect. Query: Am I correct in positioning it between

<config>

and

<!--
   These are the default Unicode chars........... ?

Is that where it belongs or have I misunderstood you?

The Gentoo community is still full of Linux guru's but these days one actually has to know who they are and who to ignore (a phpBB killfile would rock ). Those forums are getting more and more full of the Slashdot l33t d00dz and it consumes a lot of time to navigate the multitude of replies. It's actually nice that Arch hasn't caught on yet (and it will). Eventually the current posters here will be starting threads like "Remember the good ole days of these forums?" At that time skilled moderators are needed and every forum visit seems like reading the Saturday edition of the New York Times.

Yes. I can see the change there in the last several months, its become enormous. For the longest time there almost seemed to be a unspoken  prohibition against the lack of civility all too typical of many Linux forums and mailing lists. It was a pleasure to post there. Even the most outrageous questions were greeted with patience and a genuine sense of courtesy and charity. I suspect that that kind of an atmosphere engendered more than a little of Gentoo's growth. Not one particularly given to making apologies for myself simply for being new to something and quite unlikely to view the possession of knowledge as a kind of license to abuse, I'd had my fill of the arrogant and their RTFMs by the time I'd gotten there. But, sadly, with all its growth, Gentoo is beginning to change now. More and more questioners are lectured or judged rather than helped. If that keeps up, at one point or another Gentoo will peak and go into decline. I agree that Arch has quite exceptional potential. Let's hope that in three to five years we won't have occasion to meet again on some other distro's forum to discuss fonts in mozilla and to kvetch, clearly something I'm doing at the moment. smile

I'll look forward to hearing from you about the edit.

Regards.

jlowell

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#18 2003-12-25 06:05:34

rasat
Forum Fellow
From: Finland, working in Romania
Registered: 2002-12-27
Posts: 2,293
Website

Re: Fonts, Schmonts

jlowell wrote:

Anyway, some progress to report. A review of some posts you've made to font questions I've raised here in the past, specifically an earlier problem with XFree86 not initiating, gave me the impetus to run

fc-cache -fv
pacman -S ttf-bitstream-vera
pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts

rebooted and was happy to see a very distinct and positive change in the quality of the font rendering in Mozilla and elsewhere.

Thanks, I run the three "magic codes". They made a big difference in the fonts setting of all applications.... looks good.

Note:
In the above quote I have edited the wrongly spelled package name "ttf-bitream-vera" to "ttf-bitstream-vera"


Markku

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