Mozilla looks 'fuzzy' in KNOPPIX 3.2

[garyng]

I tried KNOPPIX 3.2(various build all with XFree 4.3, Mozilla 1.3) and the font just looks fuzzy which I believe is due to the anti-aliasing feature.

Is there a way to turn off anti-aliasing in Mozilla ? I just don't like this feature, be it on XP or Linux. The KDE setting is disable as far as I can tell but Mozilla seems to ignore it.

[monkeyman]

Well, the simplest way to deal with fonts in Mozilla is to create a .fonts directory in your Home Directory and load it with the MS core webfonts (a Google search for "MS core fonts will find them} and a couple of your favourite from your Windows install if you have one. If you are using persistant home the fonts will be there every time you start Knoppix. Or, you can save configuration to hard disk (the fonts will make the .tbz file too big for a floppy) or, lastly, you can save a copy of the .fonts directory to a partition and copy it over to Home each time you start up which just takes a few seconds. KDE does not have to be restarted for Mozilla to access the fonts.

[garyng]

thanks for the suggestion. However, GUI on linux is like black magic to me. It seems that the fonts used may not be related with X but some other font server and that each application may have its own idea of how to handle fonts where unlike Window is through a centralized API.

Beside, my experience with Window is that the anti-aliasing feature is not necessary related to what font I used but how it is rendered and I don't know if the same is true in linux/Mozilla. So even I have replaced the fonts, I may still get the same anti-aliasing feature which gives me the fuzzy feeling. Not to mentioned that I don't know how to install font for Mozilla.

[monkeyman]

Well, it can't hurt to try it and I have found the results to be quite satisfactory. BTW, these are the fonts I am using for Mozilla under Knoppix:

Proportional: Sans Serif /16 px
Serif: Tahoma
Sans Serif: Veranda
Cursive: Comic Sans MS
Fantasy: Serif
Monospace: Andale Mono /15 px
Minimum Font Size: 15 px
Screen: 1024x768

Looks pretty darned good.

[garyng]

Tried it by copying the two fonts I used under window(same Mozilla 1.3) and the result is no good.

First the speed drops significantly when I open Mozilla if I have a .fonts in my home(I used the persistent home feature), and it sometimes just close itself(I believe that means bug somewhere) abruptly.

I also find the option to turn of anti-aliasing from XFree86.Org and it is just ugly comparing with the same setting in Window.

In this regard, Windows looks much better than XFree86 and I doubt any joe blow user would find Linux attractive, simply from the GUI point of view.

[robk]

This is one of the reasons, why I'm still using knoppix 3.1. The last version of 3.1 works perfect for me.

[garyng]

This is one of the reasons, why I'm still using knoppix 3.1. The last version of 3.1 works perfect for me.

Indeed. I am using the Cebit image which looks much nicer to me. I don't know if it is XFree86's problem and the selection of fonts has been changed but all those 3.2 builds(except the Cebit image) looks different.

Unfortunately, the java run time in the Cebit build seems to have some problems.