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BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

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app4soft
Posts: 247
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:45 pm

BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#1 Post by app4soft »

It's look like after latest packages upgrading all fonts (in webbrowsers, in Qt apps, all them) lost hinting! Found that this bug coming in latest freetype versions

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dreamer
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:34 am

Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#2 Post by dreamer »

app4soft wrote:It's look like after latest packages upgrading all fonts (in webbrowsers, in Qt apps, all them) lost hinting! Found that this bug coming in latest freetype versions
Thanks a lot @app4soft for reporting this. I care a lot about font quality (which to some extent is subjective). I think I was hit by this "bug" in PCLinuxOS half a year ago or so. Fonts looked so "horrible" that I pretty much stopped using PCLinuxOS because of it. I never bothered to search for a solution. PCLinuxOS is a rolling distro and I wanted something stable.

The launchpad thread you link to suggests a least two different tweaks. Have you tried those and how do you plan to deal with this personally? I haven't upgraded my MX computers and I am not doing so until I understand this better. The problem seems related to these packages:

ibfontconfig1-dev (2.11.0-6.7+b1) to 2.13.0-4~mx17+1
libfreetype6-dev (2.6.3-3.2) to 2.8.1-2~mx17+1

I have only read comments about the latter. I have been using Ubuntu font rendering settings (/etc/fonts) in MX Linux since I started using MX because I think it looks slightly better.

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Stevo
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#3 Post by Stevo »

I restarted the system after the upgrades, and can't see any difference at all. Is this affecting anyone else after a restart?

The test repo version is 2.8.1, which the Ubuntu bug report indicates didn't have the hinting issues. The bug report also said that Ubuntu 17.10 could not update 2.8.0 to 2.8.1 because it would break Electron apps, but I just tested Etcher, and it looked fine.

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richb
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#4 Post by richb »

It is not affecting my system, Fonts are as they always have been.
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dreamer
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Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:34 am

Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#5 Post by dreamer »

Stevo wrote:I restarted the system after the upgrades, and can't see any difference at all. Is this affecting anyone else after a restart?

The test repo version is 2.8.1, which the Ubuntu bug report indicates didn't have the hinting issues. The bug report also said that Ubuntu 17.10 could not update 2.8.0 to 2.8.1 because it would break Electron apps, but I just tested Etcher, and it looked fine.
A few things come to my mind. From your comment it seems that this version is only in the test repo which would mean that the OP has installed it "actively" and not as part of upgrading.

The package name suggests that this is something that has been backported to MX-17 from Buster. This makes me slightly worried just like Xfce 4.14 makes me slightly worried. My idea of a stable release is that the base system only receives security fixes. The MX team may have a different philosophy and I have to respect that. Since the tweak for freetype 2.8.1 seems easy to apply it might not be a big deal. I still wonder why things like this get backported, because from a security perspective Stretch should be fully supported.

To the actual problem: I think the launchpad page gives enough info about the problem. Launchpad makes me both worried and reassured that 2.6 font rendering is just a tweak away. If freetype 2.8.1 is pushed to main MX repository I will just apply the tweak below.

There is a tweak presented in comment 36 which gives freetype 2.8.1 the same TT (TrueType) font rendering as 2.6.1. That is also confirmed by the comments following comment 36. This tweak also works in Ubuntu 18.04 which uses freetype 2.8.1.

Font rendering did indeed change between freetype 2.6.1 and freetype 2.8.1. Read comment 34:

".....Several months ago, I noticed that the font rendering changed when I upgraded my font repositories to freetype-2.7.1 and the difference in the rendering was caused by the introduction of the TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING parameter in ftoptions.h. Its not so much that the font rendering is better or worse but that it is different than before with freetype-2.6.X. In any event, at that time, I discovered that the font rendering would be made exactly the same as before by not defining TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING in freetype2 versions 2.7 and later."

This change was never reverted, hence people still using the tweak presented in comment 36.

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Stevo
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#6 Post by Stevo »

The backport of GIMP 2.10 required a backport of libfontconfig1, which in turn needed a backport of libfreetype 2.8.1 first.

We put most packages in the test repo first, including these ones, to make sure they work and don't have critical bugs. We do put some updates directly into main, but those don't include updates of major system libraries like GIMP--more userspace programs like Firefox or youtube-dl. Don't worry about an untested library getting pushed onto you.

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dreamer
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#7 Post by dreamer »

You do a fantastic job Stevo. It's more about what I can expect as a user. I would like a system like Windows 7 or Ubuntu 14.04 where the base system is stable for a certain number of years. I encountered the freetype 2.8 series "bug" in PCLinuxOS. I call it a bug because my fonts became ugly. The "bug" only affects TrueType fonts, but I happen to use a TrueType font as my system font.

As I pointed out earlier there is a solution to freetype 2.8 TrueType font-rendering. But if I hadn't known about this solution and freetype 2.8 had been pushed to main MX repo I would have had the same reaction as I had using PCLinuxOS. That reaction was - What the hell happened to my fonts? I need to find a stable distro...

This is an edge case, but as MX-17 gets older and more packages get backported there is an increased risk of changes to the base system. It's a philosophical question. How many changes are we willing to do to the Stretch base? Are we willing to backport Xfce 4.14 which will change A LOT? I can't answer these questions because I'm not making this distro, I'm just a user. I don't care about new applications, but other people do. There was a request for Gimp 2.10 the same day it was released... That was a bit early, but it's understandable people want the newest software. That's what they use on Windows...

Which brings us to the biggest weakness of Linux distros (I think): The lack of separation between base system and apps.

New package formats are here to help with this. Flatpak and Snaps have corporate backing, but the user experience is lacking because of a mandatory sandbox. AppImage is what I prefer, but creating AppImages is a new artform that has to be mastered by the Linux community. It may be too much to ask Linux app developers to create AppImages themselves so most likely it will be individuals who create them on Github. I think the LibreOffice AppImages are "state of the art". They are just as good as LO .deb packages I think. Of course the system integration is missing that you get from .debs. But you can run any version you want and you don't alter your base system because newer dependencies are bundled with the AppImage.

I just tried Gimp 2.10 as AppImage. It's not built by Gimp developers and it doesn't set up a dedicated Gimp 2.10 profile so in that sense it's inferior to what LibreOffice has created. Apart from that it runs well in my short test. Can be downloaded from here:

https://github.com/aferrero2707/gimp-ap ... 4.AppImage

I respect MX Linux for what it is and all the work that goes into it. However if I were to use MX Linux in a "production environment" I would like more of a Ubuntu LTS approach. That is:

1. Big changes for example Xfce 4.14 are packaged in an optional repo (Ubuntu MATE 16.04 did this with MATE 1.16)
2. New applications that require backports of base system components are packaged in a separate repo or delivered as standalone applications (AppImages, Flatpaks, Snaps).

This keeps the base system clean with minimal disturbances.

I like the Ubuntu LTS philosophy and I would probably have used Xubuntu LTS if Ubuntu hadn't chosen Systemd. I saw firsthand how many unnecessary problems this caused for *buntu users. With Upstart it was smooth sailing and then Systemd was introduced and systems couldn't boot or were caught in boot-loops and couldn't shut-down. And if they booted often it was to a desktop were vital services hadn't been started so login/logout a few times were a must. I'm still angry about this because it killed Ubuntu for me. Has this been fixed? I doubt it. Last time I visited the Ubuntu MATE forum I saw the same kind of threads and advice on how to make a script for delaying start-up services.

Add to that the fact that the notification area is more or less broken in *buntu. Indicators is the new thing, which is supposed to be better, but is not. And the lack of a remaster utility after Systemback bit the dust.

I write about this because I think about it. Linux Mint has many business users (I believe). At least they have corporate sponsors. I think this is because they have an excellent LTS strategy. I think MX Linux is better than Linux Mint. But Linux Mint can cater to both conservative (business) and progressive users. You can install Linux Mint and "nothing" will change for five years OR you can upgrade your DE (Cinnamon and X-apps) every six months for two years. When Linux (in general) figures out how to separate the base system from apps in a smart way, Linux will become popular. I think Linux Mint is the distro that does this best so far. MX Linux has higher quality which is shown by Distrowatch reviews, but for business users the stable LTS strategy may be worth more.

Just a few thoughts.

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Stevo
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#8 Post by Stevo »

We do have a separate experimental repo, but so far, it hasn't been used too much.

Another solution would be to for us to have stuff in an OBS repository, like I just did for the ffmpeg 4.0 and mpv 0.28.2 backports from Debian Experimental. I made a new repo on the OBS that pulls build-depends from a "main" multimedia repo I have there, but just adding the branch let me install the new mpv on MX: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... &start=150

But being dependent on the OBS is not the best solution. I just use it because it's a pretty good alternative to PPAs for Debian.

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Stevo
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#9 Post by Stevo »

Is this a bug actually observed by anyone with the newer libfreetype6 running MX 17? If not, I would change the title of the first post to something like "Questions about the libfreetype6 update in testing".

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Jerry3904
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Re: BUG: All fonts lost hinting after upgrading "freetype"

#10 Post by Jerry3904 »

I write about this because I think about it. Linux Mint has many business users (I believe). At least they have corporate sponsors. I think this is because they have an excellent LTS strategy. I think MX Linux is better than Linux Mint. But Linux Mint can cater to both conservative (business) and progressive users. You can install Linux Mint and "nothing" will change for five years OR you can upgrade your DE (Cinnamon and X-apps) every six months for two years. When Linux (in general) figures out how to separate the base system from apps in a smart way, Linux will become popular. I think Linux Mint is the distro that does this best so far. MX Linux has higher quality which is shown by Distrowatch reviews, but for business users the stable LTS strategy may be worth more.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. If we had the amount of resources that Mint and Ubuntu have--both number of developers and just plain money--we might be concerned about the business community. But we don't, so we can't.

It's actually kind of funny to see how many posts we are getting about other approaches/business models/missions we *should* be taking. We do what we do, and I think we do it well, but we definitely don't try to be all things to all people (omnia omnibus).
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