emul-linux-x86-xlibs-10.0 -> horrid fonts in 32-bit apps

[JuNix]

I am *so* glad I stumbled on this thread. I had my fonts looking absolutely _fine_ with my very very nice optimised local.conf and lots of nice ttf fonts copied over from my 'dozer box - until last week and my fonts suddenly started to look ugly as buttholes and I've been ripping my hair out while fscking about with local.conf files galore. Now I know where to start looking to get this almighty foobar fixed. You all rock

[mobymac]

well then I'm glad I bumped it.

[only2sea]

1. Compile 32bit version of freetype and make a package. Take the necessary steps to make sure "bindist" IS NOT enabled:

Code: Select all

# ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype

For me, it didn't compile 32 bit version of freetype. It just compiled 64 bit. I was root and I did it same way. But it didn't compile it into 32 bit directory. And it was 64 bit binary indeed it produced. I forced to load it, but it said ELF error. Hmm..... Let me research more...

[ikshaar]

That command does not install, only create the package. You need to look into your /usr/portage/packages/All/

[Konsti]

Actually I am trying to fix up my display and get rif of blurry anitaliasing so I messed around with freetype.

Code: Select all

ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype

yields into:

Code: Select all

x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -Wl,-O1 -Wl,--enable-new-dtags -Wl,--sort-common -s -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftstring /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftstring.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

PS.: How do I achieve a font exactly like that in http://www.antikoerperchen.de/dateien/f ... /alias.png
?

[flexo]

Actually I am trying to fix up my display and get rif of blurry anitaliasing so I messed around with freetype.

Code: Select all

ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype

yields into:

Code: Select all

x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -Wl,-O1 -Wl,--enable-new-dtags -Wl,--sort-common -s -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftstring /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftstring.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

same over here...

[Konsti]

I found out compiling a package this way is not ought to work.

Menwhile I think I got it this way. Antialiasing off for normal fonts, on for bold larger ones and bytecode interpreter on:

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<fontconfig>
        <match target="font" >
                <edit mode="assign" name="autohint" >
                        <bool>false</bool>
                </edit>
                <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
                        <bool>true</bool>
                </edit>
                <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
                        <bool>false</bool>
                </edit>
                <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
                        <const>hintfull</const>
                </edit>
        </match>

        <!-- Reject bitmap fonts in favour of Truetype, Postscript, etc. -->
        <selectfont>
                <rejectfont>
                        <pattern>
                                <patelt name="scalable">
                                        <bool>false</bool>
                                </patelt>
                        </pattern>
                </rejectfont>
        </selectfont>

        <!-- Enable anti-aliasing for bold fonts > 14px -->
        <match target="font">
                <test compare="more" name="pixelsize" qual="any">
                        <double>14</double>
                </test>
                <test name="weight" compare="more">
                        <const>medium</const>
                </test>
                <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
                        <bool>true</bool>
                </edit>
        </match>


</fontconfig>

This looks pretty like in the screenshot.

[Konsti]

Actually I am investigating to set up x86-chroot because of this mess until a couple of games and netscape-flash, acroread get 64Bit (I _want_ to watch this kind pr0n stuff and there is no more valueble pdf reader out there, sorry).
This is no rant at all, I learned from an unstable debian setup from my computer at my work that this can work pretty well. No multilib anymore...

What I wonder is the following: If the gentoo developer disable the bytecode interpreter due to legal issues, why is it even enabled by the debian folks in their precompiled binary packages? As I know them they are much more careful on such issues like any other folks (one eye smiling )?

[tazinblack]

For me

Code: Select all

 ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype

also failed with

Code: Select all

x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftstring /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftstring.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so -lz /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.so when searching for -lz
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.a when searching for -lz
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/ftstring] Error 1
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftgamma /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftgamma.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so -lz /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.so when searching for -lz
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.a when searching for -lz
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/ftgamma] Error 1
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftmulti /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftmulti.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so -lz /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.so when searching for -lz
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.a when searching for -lz
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/ftmulti] Error 1
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftgrid /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftgrid.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so -lz /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.so when searching for -lz
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.a when searching for -lz
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/ftgrid] Error 1
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftdiff /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftdiff.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so -lz /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc -o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/.libs/ftview /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftview.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/common.o /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/ftcommon.o  /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4/objs/.libs/libfreetype.so -lz /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/obj/graph.a -L/usr/lib /usr/lib64/libX11.so /usr/lib64/libXau.so /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so -ldl -lm -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/lib
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.so when searching for -lz
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.a when searching for -lz
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/ftdiff] Error 1
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.so when searching for -lz
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/libz.a when searching for -lz
/usr/lib64/libX11.so: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/ft2demos-2.3.4/bin/ftview] Error 1
 * 
 * ERROR: media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2 failed.
 * Call stack:
 *   ebuild.sh, line 1654:   Called dyn_compile
 *   ebuild.sh, line 990:   Called qa_call 'src_compile'
 *   ebuild.sh, line 44:   Called src_compile
 *   freetype-2.3.4-r2.ebuild, line 102:   Called die
 * 
 * ft2demos emake failed
 * If you need support, post the topmost build error, and the call stack if relevant.
 * A complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/temp/build.log'.
 * 

 * Messages for package media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2:

 * 
 * ERROR: media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2 failed.
 * Call stack:
 *   ebuild.sh, line 1654:   Called dyn_compile
 *   ebuild.sh, line 990:   Called qa_call 'src_compile'
 *   ebuild.sh, line 44:   Called src_compile
 *   freetype-2.3.4-r2.ebuild, line 102:   Called die
 * 
 * ft2demos emake failed
 * If you need support, post the topmost build error, and the call stack if relevant.
 * A complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/temp/build.log'.
 * 

any ideas ?

tazinblack

[slithy]

I just looked at the 20071128-r2 ebuild and realized all the binaries are now included in one tar ball. Looks like the old steps to solving this problem won't work. Taking a look at the contents of the tarball, the included version of freetype is 2.3.4-r2. How to replace it with our own compiled version will take some more looking into.

[grrrendel]

You can replace the libfreetype included in the emul-linux-x86-xlibs tarball by one compiled with ABI=x86.


Extract the xlibs tarball.

Code: Select all

# mkdir /tmp/emul-xlibs
# tar jxpvf /usr/portage/distfiles/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20071128.tar.bz2 -C /tmp/emul-xlibs

Build the 32bit binary package as usual.

Code: Select all

# ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype

You will probably encounter a build error in the ft2demos directory. That's okay, as libfreetype has already been built. The shared library should be stripped, if the emerge failed:

Code: Select all

# cd /var/tmp/portage/media-libs/freetype-2.3.4-r2/work/freetype-2.3.4
# strip objs/.libs/libfreetype.so.6.3.15

You can now copy the shared and static libraries into the xlibs directory and repackage the tarball.

Code: Select all

# cp objs/.libs/libfreetype.{a,so.6.3.15} /tmp/emul-xlibs/usr/lib32/
# cd /tmp/emul-xlibs
# tar cjpvf ../emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20071128.tar.bz2 *

Alternatively copy libfreetype.a and libfreetype.so.6.3.15 from the built package in /usr/portage/packages/All/freetype-2.3.4-r2.tbz2 if you emerged it successfully.

Now you can emerge the modified package same as before:

Code: Select all

# cp /tmp/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20071128.tar.bz2 /usr/portage/distfiles/
# ebuild /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20071128-r2.ebuild digest
# emerge -1 emul-linux-x86-xlibs

[Alanceil]

A thousand thanks to you, my fonts look "good" again

As far as I can see, this seems to be a problem that occurs often .. is there a chance that the building process you described can be made into an ebuild or a useflag ( sth. like "rebuilt-font-support" ) for the emul-xlibs and upped into the portage tree ?

[grrrendel]

A thousand thanks to you, my fonts look "good" again

As far as I can see, this seems to be a problem that occurs often .. is there a chance that the building process you described can be made into an ebuild or a useflag ( sth. like "rebuilt-font-support" ) for the emul-xlibs and upped into the portage tree ?

I don't think that this is possible at the moment.

This approach with building 32bit-freetype yourself uses some incomplete multilib functionality from Portage.
It's incomplete because Portage cannot handle installations for several ABIs although building works for some packages.

However, as soon as Portage gets the ability to emerge x86 packages on amd64 (i.e. true multilib) this awkward situation will be history.

[slithy]

Not trusting the partial multilib implementation, I used a binary build of freetype from an actual i686 gentoo machine and copied over the same libraries. It worked fine. I can probably throw up the freetype someplace if people want it.

[Antimatter]

Not trusting the partial multilib implementation, I used a binary build of freetype from an actual i686 gentoo machine and copied over the same libraries. It worked fine. I can probably throw up the freetype someplace if people want it.

I have the same issue, so I followed the guide here and rebuilt my emul-linux-x86-xlibs to use a newer freetype without bindist set and etc...

But firefox still looks bad in firefox-bin...

firefox-bin
firefox-src

Also on the firefox-bin is the go button after the address bar... I wiped out my profile and theoretically both should be exactly the same, however the fonts are still screwy on firefox-bin....

Any idea?

[cbeley]

I was having the same issue with the fonts in firefox-bin, so I started to following grrrendel's advice and things seem to be really messed up now....

When I started following his instructions, I coulden't do "tar jxpvf /usr/portage/distfiles/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20071128.tar.bz2 -C /tmp/emul-xlibs" because I had an older version of xlibs, so, I emerged the latest version and reissued the command. I don't think that would have messed anything up. Next, I ran ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype, which gave me no problems what so-ever and succesffully emerged it. When I went on to the other instructions however, half the things mentioned diden't even exist, so I just stopped right there. So, the only thing that could have caused a problem was running "ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype". When I run firefox, I now get:

No running windows found
/opt/firefox/firefox-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libexpat.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
firefox-bin exited with non-zero status (127)

So, to fix it I first tried to undo "ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype" by running "ABI=x86 emerge -B --unmerge freetype" I then did a "emerge --ask freetype" to get everything back to normal. Afterwards, firefox still diden't run.

So, I do emerge emul-linux-x86-xlibs to try to fix the problem, and after that diden't work, I unmerged it, then emerged it again...still no luck. So, as a last resort of hope, I run revdep-rebuild. This went through and did it things fine, giving a bunch of broken messages about libexpat.so.0 and it does it things and finishes succesffuly. However, if I rerun it again, the same excact messages come up, it does the same excact thing, and says it succesffull every time I run it.

I'm sort of stumped. It does seem some of my x86 packages are not fully updated...which could be the problem I guess.... The one thing I haven't tried is just updating my whole system, which I will go ahead and do. Any advice on how to fix this would be nice....since, I'd rather have some small text verses no firefox at all

EDIT: Even though revdep-rebuild resports everything as well, I noticed the following when revdep-rebuild emerged some things:

>>> Original instance of package unmerged safely.
* Generating pango modules listing...
pango-querymodules32: error while loading shared libraries: libexpat.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
* Generating gtk+ immodules/gdk-pixbuf loaders listing...
gtk-query-immodules-2.0-32: error while loading shared libraries:

libexpat.so.0

: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Something is really wrong here :S

EDIT: Doing a full update of my system fixed all the problems...firefox works again Probally for the best....since now my system is completely updated with no known issues as a result of that

[Antimatter]

*bump* I hate to bump a thread, but I am still having this issue and its still not resolved, and firefox-src still looks great but the flash plugin and java plugins are starting to become more and more unstable..

[MM23]

I'm kind of confused why a version of the 32-bit xlibs can't have a useflag that pulls a seperate version compiled without bindist.

By not having bindist set, aren't you essentially confirming and consenting to your agreement of the licensing restrictions? I'm not exactly a lawyer and don't get exactly how this works, but that's my reasoning.

Therefore, wouldn't it be okay to have a useflag (something the user MUST consent to using, you could even have a secondary warning during the emerge with a link to the license readme or whatever) for this?

It's really stupid having to have absolutely hideous fonts for any 32-bit apps.

[BMintern]

<snip>

Build the 32bit binary package as usual.

Code: Select all

# ABI=x86 emerge -B freetype

<snip>

Change that to:

Code: Select all

# ABI=x86 emerge -avB =freetype-2.3.4-r2

(I say to use "av" so that you can ensure that "-bindist" is in use.)

The rest of grrrendel's post should apply. The library version was bumped to a new version in current freetype, instead of the one that is currently used in emul-linux-x86-xlibs, so it's necessary to use the older version.

That said, I have done this, and the fonts still look different, so I don't know what is going on. -bindist is definitely present and I am now definitely using my own custom-built freetype, and they still don't look like they did on mozilla-firefox (64-bit).

Any chance of this being remedied in some other way? My 64-bit firefox was getting way too unstable between npviewer.bin errors (flash stopping randomly after some time, necessitating a restart of the browser to get it back) and a complete inability to use Java. Using 32-bit fixes those problems wonderfully, but now my fonts are crazy.

Maybe by the time firefox-3 is ready, we will have some sane 64-bit plugins? That would be awesome. (I know this is not a Gentoo responsibility.) Either that, or as someone else suggested, it would be great if these "emul-*" packages could be distributed as source and built in the same way that wine is, instead of having to distribute binaries. That would avoid the licensing issues entirely and would allow us to use our standard USE flags.


EDIT: In Gnome, I went to System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts and selected Subpixel smoothing. The next time I restarted my computer (probably just restarting X would be plenty), my fonts are back to how they used to look on mozilla-firefox, perhaps even clearer. As a nice side effect, my terminal fonts are quite beautiful now as well. My eyes will thank me the next time I am spending hours programming. So following grrrendel's method with my small change, being sure to set subpixel smoothing (if you have an LCD), and then restarting X should take care of the problem

Unfortunately, mozilla-firefox-bin is still occasionally freezing on flash sites (perhaps it's a plugin problem), and Gnome has decided to give me a strange new cursor. But those are separate problems...

[Antimatter]

I'm curious as of why the emul-lib package are offered up as binary, can't it be possible to somehow define an ABI or something on a per packet basis and have two slots available, one 64 and one 32 bit, so we can compile our 32bit portation of the multilib implement so that we can compile exactly what we want in these package.

[dopey]

The problem I'm having isn't really solved with a new 32-bit freetype built without bindist USE flag.

I don't like the way fonts look with Full hinting. I prefer medium hinting. However, if I use medium hinting, the fonts on 32-bit firefox-bin's menu bar are larger than under 64-bit firefox.

If I switch to full hinting it looks okay, but anything other than full hinting makes the fonts just too big.

Anyone having a similar problem and figured out a solution or is there something screwy with firefox-bin that just prevents any other hinting style from working right?

[neonl]

Hello all.

This thread was created 1 year ago, and now the versions of the packs are diferent so I don't know how to apply the things that were said here to my case (and don't even know if it is exactly the same the screenshots here posted are not in the servers anymore) so I'm going to explain it and I count on your help .

I use the package mozilla-firefox-bin (32-bits) because it's a very much stable solution for flash than using firefox-64bits + nspluginwrapper. Everything was ok, until I notice that the fonts (after everything configured in xorg.conf and fontconfig, etc) look ugly and I can't do nothing about it - screenshot.

I removed the package, just to be sure, and I built the mozilla-firefox package with my 64-bits flag. The result was that the fonts were working ok here.

Now, the packages are:
mozilla-firefox-bin-3.0.1-r1
emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080316

Thanks in advance.

[jw5801]

Hello all.

This thread was created 1 year ago, and now the versions of the packs are diferent so I don't know how to apply the things that were said here to my case (and don't even know if it is exactly the same the screenshots here posted are not in the servers anymore) so I'm going to explain it and I count on your help .

I use the package mozilla-firefox-bin (32-bits) because it's a very much stable solution for flash than using firefox-64bits + nspluginwrapper. Everything was ok, until I notice that the fonts (after everything configured in xorg.conf and fontconfig, etc) look ugly and I can't do nothing about it - screenshot.

I removed the package, just to be sure, and I built the mozilla-firefox package with my 64-bits flag. The result was that the fonts were working ok here.

Now, the packages are:
mozilla-firefox-bin-3.0.1-r1
emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080316

Thanks in advance.

I realise this is probably a bit late, but I just stumbled on this thread myself trying to fix this bug. So I'll explain how to do it with the newer version for the benefit of anyone else who comes along.

You can apply exactly what's in this post, except replace 20071128 with 20080316. Don't worry about the stripping part, you probably won't have any trouble compiling freetype, so just extract /usr/portage/packages/All/freetype-2.3.7.tbz2 to somewhere in /tmp and copy usr/lib32/libfreetype.{a,so.6.3.18} to /tmp/emul-xlibs/usr/lib32/. Then pick up with the rest.

How about I write it out again:

Grab the existing distfile & extract it

Code: Select all

mkdir /tmp/emul-xlibs
tar jxpvf /usr/portage/distfiles/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-$X86_XLIBS_VERSION.tar.bz2 -C /tmp/emul-xlibs

Emerge a good 32-bit version of freetype (don't forget to check the bindist USE flag is not set)

Code: Select all

ABI=x86 emerge -avB freetype

Grab the resultant package

Code: Select all

mkdir /tmp/freetype
tar xvf /usr/portage/packages/All/freetype-2.3.7.tbz2 -C /tmp/freetype

Copy the good freetype library to the xlibs directory and recreate the tarball

Code: Select all

cp /tmp/freetype/usr/lib32/libfreetype.{a,so.*} /tmp/emul-xlibs/lib32/
cd /tmp/emul-xlibs
tar cjpvf ../emul-linux-x86-xlibs-$X86_XLIBS_VERSION.tar.bz2 *

Copy it back into distfiles and recreate the digest

Code: Select all

cp /tmp/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-$X86_XLIBS_VERSION.tar.bz2 /usr/portage/distfiles/
rm /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/Manifest
ebuild /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-$X86_XLIBS_VERSION.ebuild manifest

Emerge your fixed version

Code: Select all

emerge -1 emul-linux-x86-xlibs

EDIT: Updated and made more generic for future reference.

[spaceLem]

Grab the existing distfile & extract it

Code: Select all

mkdir /tmp/emul-xlibs
tar jxpvf /usr/portage/distfiles/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080316.tar.bz2 -C /tmp/emul-xlibs

Emerge a good 32-bit version of freetype (don't forget to check the bindist USE flag is not set)

Code: Select all

ABI=x86 emerge -avB freetype

Grab the resultant package

Code: Select all

mkdir /tmp/freetype
tar xvf /usr/portage/packages/All/freetype-2.3.7.tbz2 -C /tmp/freetype

Copy the good freetype library to the xlibs directory and recreate the tarball

Code: Select all

cp /tmp/freetype/usr/lib32/libfreetype.{a,so.6.3.18} /tmp/emul-xlibs/lib32/
cd /tmp/emul-xlibs
tar cjpvf ../emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080316.tar.bz2 *

Copy it back into distfiles and recreate the digest

Code: Select all

cp /tmp/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080316.tar.bz2 /usr/portage/distfiles/
ebuild /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080316.ebuild digest

Emerge your fixed version

Code: Select all

emerge -1 emul-linux-x86-xlibs

I commented over a year ago in this thread, but my problems recently came back.

I have an old libfreetype.so.6.3.8 which I've linked to /usr/lib32/libfreetype.so[.6]. This fixes the font problems for firefox-bin, but it seems now that the broken libfreetype.so.6.3.18 that xlibs gives me gets relinked every time I reboot (and while I'd like to leave my PC on all the time I can't) - I honestly don't know how or why it does this.

I tried jw5801's excellent guide (with minor tweaking for xlibs version), but every time I get to the last stage and try to rebuild the digest, portage just merrily downloads another version of the package in distfiles and overwrites it, thus making the entire exercise pointless.

So I have two possible ways to fix this problem: a) stop linux from breaking my fix on every reboot, or b) force portage to accept my fixed distfile. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[jw5801]

Yeah, I encountered that with a more recent version. The new version of portage has removed the ebuild digest command, it now just executes the manifest command, which will check the tarball against the md5sum in the Manifest, and redownload if it fails, rather than recreating the md5sum. 'tis a little bit annoying!

If I recall correctly, the way I got around it was to completely remove the Manifest and recreate it. So follow as before, but rather than running "ebuild /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080810.ebuild digest", instead run:

Code: Select all

rm /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/Manifest
ebuild /usr/portage/app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs/emul-linux-x86-xlibs-20080810.ebuild manifest

I'm reasonably confident that was my workaround, I really should have posted it as I did it, it annoyed me for a fair while. You'll have to wait a little while as it rebuilds the manifest for all the different versions. I guess a different way would be to mirror it with just our new tarball in /usr/local/portage, but the above should work also. The change to the manifest will be undone the next time you "emerge --sync", that shouldn't matter though, as you'll only need to do it once for each new version you want to install.