Screen fonts in 3.2

[Tortoise]

I had a look through, and can find some discussion about this, but no resolution.
My screen font's look horrible in KDW, and in Mozilla. Windows fonts are much nicer - how do I get the same quality of fonts in Knoppix?
Thanks,

[garyng]

One thing you can try is to REMOVE all the FontPath entries in XF86Config-4. I was testing the fonts too and accidentally found that the best way is to let XFree86 decide what fonts to use. The result is surprisingly good. Now my desktop looks almost EXACTLY like my XP setup(in terms of font crispiness), and I am getting this without any of the MS truetype fonts. That is just using stock XFree86 4.3 fonts. Well, my chinese fonts still looks ugly in Konqueror, still experimenting.

This is a surprise, I was never been able to get such a good looking desktop, especially comparing with XP.

The FontPath setting changes the priority of what fonts to be selected and I am sure I can get the same result but why bother when I specify nothing get me what I want :)

One caveat though is I would suggest a reboot right after you changes the stuff as in one occation when I am messing with this(startx, quit, change and startx etc.), the machine REBOOT by itself. But it happens only once, my guess is something was not clean up, for whatever reason.

The display configuration I use is 1024x768 with X started with 100dpi(factory default).

[Tortoise]

Thanks, this sounds like what I need, although I'd appreciate it if you could break down the steps required to do this, since I am a complete noob to this.
Appreciate it,
Tortoise

[garyng]

open /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 with your favorite text editor

Find ALL the lines that said "FontPath ...."
Put a '#' in front of it.
Save the file

reboot the system.

The problem of linux is that its components change as time goes by and some once 'tips and tricks' can become useless(sometimes make things worse). This XF86 setup is one of it. I have cleaned it up a lot and found the defaults works surprisingly well, at least for my configuration.

[Stephen]

open /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 with your favorite text editor

Find ALL the lines that said "FontPath ...."
Put a '#' in front of it.
Save the file

reboot the system.

The problem of linux is that its components change as time goes by and some once 'tips and tricks' can become useless(sometimes make things worse). This XF86 setup is one of it. I have cleaned it up a lot and found the defaults works surprisingly well, at least for my configuration.

I just tried it and I see some improvement nice one.

BTW you don't have to re-boot just choose re-start the x-server from the menu option in the login window.

[Tortoise]

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow!

[garyng]

I just tried it and I see some improvement nice one.

BTW you don't have to re-boot just choose re-start the x-server from the menu option in the login window.

Good to know that it works for others too. As for the reboot, I am just being cautious as I did come across once that making changes to the font configurations(though not XF86Config-4 but fonts.conf), and restart X and BOOM, I am in the BIOS memory testing screen and go through the painfully long fsck.

[Stephen]

I discovered a side effect the fonts in xmms and the gimp weren't the best so I went and uncommented


FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"

re-started the x-server and now the fonts on both the desktop and the x apps are great. :D

[garyng]

yes, unscaled is the key, I just add these 3 lines and all the western fonts looks very nice and even my problematic chinese fonts in konqueror is now acceptable(still ugly but at least readable).

thanks for the info. Seems that the base setting would be nothing then add back the rest one by one. Don't know how it would affect printing though or is printing under linux is largely independant of X ?

[Stephen]

yes, unscaled is the key, I just add these 3 lines and all the western fonts looks very nice and even my problematic chinese fonts in konqueror is now acceptable(still ugly but at least readable).

thanks for the info. Seems that the base setting would be nothing then add back the rest one by one. Don't know how it would affect printing though or is printing under linux is largely independant of X ?

I believe the printing is handled by CUPS but I don't have a printer laying around to test for any side effects.

[Tortoise]

This is certainly better, but it still doesn't look great, MY win2k fonts still look cleaner and crisper, regardless of antialiasing settings. Any other ideas?

[Stephen]

This is certainly better, but it still doesn't look great, MY win2k fonts still look cleaner and crisper, regardless of antialiasing settings. Any other ideas?

Which fonts are you using I usually only use the Helvetica, Times, Bitstream Charter and the Bistream Vera.

[Tortoise]

I'm using helvetica mainly, and it's that one I'm having issues with.

[Stephen]

I'm using helvetica mainly, and it's that one I'm having issues with.
You should try the bistream-vera there pretty good. Also discovered tonight that your monitor can have quite a bit to do with the fonts. I picked up a used Acer at an auction, came home pluged it in and just can't believe the difference.

[Tortoise]

I don't seem to have all of these - how do I add them?

[Stephen]

I don't seem to have all of these - how do I add them?

There in there in testing or unstable you should just apt-get install ttf-bitstream-vera



[02:04 AM Thu Jun 05: stephen @ ~]
>$ apt-cache policy ttf-bitstream-vera
ttf-bitstream-vera:
Installed: 1.10-3
Candidate: 1.10-3
Version Table:
*** 1.10-3 0
990 http://ftp.de.debian.org testing/main Packages
500 http://ftp.de.debian.org unstable/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[w.nelson]

Hey try this:

Select Configuring anti-aliased fonts

http://jetblackz.freeservers.com/

:P

[Goner]

i used this HOWTO on a Mandrake install and it really improved the GUI ...

"XFree86 Font De-uglification HOWTO"
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/index.html

Goner