freetype update -> fonts ugly

Horus107 · Apprentice Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 230

Hello,
I've done the recent freetype update (on version 2.3.3) and now some types of fonts log significantly worse than before. Sme letters have something like a red shadow (look at http://xgm.de/staticfiles/freetype.png) furthermore the bold standard font looks rather like Comic Sans MS. (rounded corners)

I use KDE 3.5.5 with Bitstream Vera Sans 12 as standard font. Anti Aliasing is enabled with Sub-Pixel Hinting RGB enables. Hinting style is medium. My screen is a TFT.

Any ideas? Recommandation for other fonts that look good a a screen?

Thanks,

Florian

dopey · Apprentice Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 235

i noticed that fonts for my GTK apps got bigger and are less well defined. Fonts in KDE are a little off like yours too.

I'm running amd64 and have both 64-bit and 32-bit firefox (with 32-bit and 64-bit freetype libraries built) and the 32-bit freetype libraries are still the older version from the emul-linux package and so 32-bit firefox still looks good, but 64-bit firefox looks horrid.

ollonois · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 6:46 pm Post subject:

Same problem here after a freetype update.
Some letters seem to be yellow or blue at the edges. It is very hard so read long texts now.

dopey · Apprentice Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 235

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173804

Comment #3. purge ~/.font* /etc/font* and re-emerge fontconfig and freetype (not sure if freetype needs to be re-emerged).

Also, it looks like the "bindist" USE flat disables the TT bytecode interpreter now rather than enables it like it used to.

if ! use bindist; then
# Bytecodes and subpixel hinting supports are patented
# in United States; for safety, disable them while building
# binaries, so that no risky code is distributed.
# See http://freetype.org/patents.html

enable_option TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
enable_option FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING
disable_option TT_CONFIG_OPTION_UNPATENTED_HINTING
fi

from the ebuild.

if ! use bindist, then enable the interpreter. That might be some of the problem.

Horus107 · Apprentice Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 230

So should the bindist USE flag be enabled or disabled while building freetype? I'm not sure if I understood you correctly?

dopey · Apprentice Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 235

Previous freetype ebuild:
use bindist || append-flags -DTT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER

In the past bindist is enabled for the bytecode interpreter, but now it looks like you want to disable it.
I purged and recreated my .font* files and re-emerged fontconfig and freetype, and it looks better but it's still slightly off without bindist enabled for freetype. With bindist it looks hideous

.

In the past it was the opposite.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

See xeffects overlay, if you want gorgeous fonts :wink:

Horus107 · Apprentice Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 230

I've tried it with bindist set and bindist unset and don't notice a real difference or improvement, it's still worse than it was before.

downey · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 7:44 pm Post subject:

Definitely rm -rf /etc/fonts/ and all the ~/.font directories and files. Then reemerge fontconfig. My fonts were bolded and incorrect before I did that and now they are back to normal. I had to go into Settings->Appearance and Themes->Fonts under KDE and set the sub-pixel hinting to RGB and set the hinting to full again. I believe there is a similar setting under Gnome.

Hope that helps.

Erlend · Guru Joined: 26 Dec 2004 Posts: 493

taiger · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Nov 2003 Posts: 112

RiBBiT · Apprentice Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 215 Location: Sweden

I fixed it for me by switching from "Best Shapes" to "Best Contrast" in the GNOME Font Preferences.
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taiger · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 25 Nov 2003 Posts: 112

Horus107 · Apprentice Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 230

It's a little bit better with the hints above and hinting set to Full on KDE. The overall experience is event better than it was before, only the bold fonts still look ugly.

PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310

c_t · Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject:

I had the same problems after upgrading to freetype-2.3.3 .

Purging the .font* files, re-emerging fontconfig & freetype and setting hinting to "RGB" and hinting style to "full" in kde-3.5.5 control-center made everything look at least as nice as before!

Thanks!

Quincy · Posted: Wed May 09, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject:

My problem is not at all that it looks different, but programs like Open Office change their line length --> different document structure! I already reemerged freetype and fontconfig, but it stays the same under my KDE (fonts are smaller and kind of blurred). Does anybody have a similar problem?

KozmoNaut · Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 2:38 pm Post subject:

It's b0rked here as well...

I used subpixel hinting and hinting set to "slight" in KDE before, but after emerging freetype-2.3.3 it messed up my fonts.

I deleted /etc/fonts/*, re-emerged fontconfig and freetype and it still looked like hell.

Right now I have freetype emerged with the bindist useflag on and hinting set to "full" in KDE, yet it's still nowhere near as nice as it was before.

EDIT: Ha! It's fixed now!

I re-emerged freetype with the bindist useflag off again and changed this in my /etc/fonts/local.conf (I had it set to true before):

manuels · Advocate Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 2146 Location: Europe

same problem here.
disabling autohinting solved this problem but without autohinting the fonts look ugly too
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oober · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 8:10 am Post subject:

I just went back to an earlier version of freetype. Looks much better. I hope they get this problem sorted out soon.

beijingjj · Apprentice Joined: 01 Jul 2006 Posts: 212

manuels · Advocate Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 2146 Location: Europe

in the current portage tree these versions are available:

armin · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 46

purging and reemerging did not work for me.

so i switched back to old freetype again.

until this mess is fixed.

Quincy · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:36 pm Post subject:

The interesting point is: I have four machines with quite the same software configuration, but two of them look ugly now and two don't, but i can't find the difference. Has this something to do with the graphics driver (beacuse these are different between the machines)?

armin · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 46