freetype version & font rendering

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arken
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Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:57 pm

freetype version & font rendering

#1 Post by arken »

Hi,
I noticed that on MX17 the version of freetype used is 2.6.3, and that is was downgraded since MX16.

I'm very curious to know the reasoning behind that choice and why you are not using a more recent freetype version?

Also on the topic of font rendering, in the Appearance > Fonts tab, does changes to Hinting and Sub-pixel order ever apply to the fonts of an application like firefox or vim?

Thanks in advance.

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Stevo
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Re: freetype version & font rendering

#2 Post by Stevo »

We recently added a backport of Freetype 2.8.1 to the test repo to support GIMP 2.10. If it doesn't have any problems, we can move it to main.

We had 2.7 in MX 16 because it was supposed to make the fonts even better-looking. However, they also seem to look just fine in MX 17 with Stretch's version, so we didn't feel the need to upgrade it.

arken
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:57 pm

Re: freetype version & font rendering

#3 Post by arken »

Alright I'll try to update to try that. Do you think the instructions in https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/font-adjustment still apply?

Do the fonts and config file downloadable here (scroll to "good fonts for linux") would be safe to use/still relevant to MX configuration? (like unpacking fonts to /usr/share/fonts and also putting .font.conf into your $HOME directory or save it as /etc/fonts/conf.d/99-my-fonts.conf )

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Stevo
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Re: freetype version & font rendering

#4 Post by Stevo »

I have most of my fonts installed in my home directory, since it's a single user system. That way I can just keep them through upgrades.

I don't know much about the configuration, though. I think the fonts look darn good out of the box, but I'm not too picky in that respect.

arken
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Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:57 pm

Re: freetype version & font rendering

#5 Post by arken »

Stevo wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 4:26 pm I have most of my fonts installed in my home directory.
Sorry for the stupid question but you create a fonts folder and drop your fonts directly in it or you dump your fonts directly in the home directory?

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Stevo
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Re: freetype version & font rendering

#6 Post by Stevo »

Well, actually I install them with the KDE GUI font install tool, since I run Dolphin as my file manager in xfce. I think some I have just installed directly from a web page using the OCS method, which requires that ocs-url be installed. Let me see where they go...yeah, they go into a hidden ".fonts" folder in my home directory, so create one if you don't already have it.

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