Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
I have the impression that since about 2 days ago the font rendering in Fedora rawhide is less good than before. Fonts appear fuzzier, and in particular Luxi Mono looks more deformed. There hasn't been a freetype update, thus some GNOME package might be responsible. I have noticed this effect on 2 different systems, one with an ATI video card, the other with an Intel onboard graphics device. ~C -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 09:49:13AM +0100, Christoph Frieben wrote: > I have the impression that since about 2 days ago the font rendering > in Fedora rawhide is less good than before. Fonts appear fuzzier, and > in particular Luxi Mono looks more deformed. There hasn't been a > freetype update, thus some GNOME package might be responsible. > I have noticed this effect on 2 different systems, one with an ATI There was a change to font properties which changed "Best shapes" to turn on slight hinting. -- Tomasz TorczOnly gods can safely risk perfection, xmpp: zdzich...@chrome.pl it's a dangerous thing for a man. -- Alia -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
2009/10/29 Tomasz Torcz: > There was a change to font properties which changed "Best shapes" > to turn on slight hinting. Good point, but I wonder why this change has been made. It suffices to look at two attachments to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=198082 namely https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=351609 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=351613 which demonstrate that medium hinting used to give better results, namely for MS fonts. However, this holds at least for Luxi Mono, too , the traditional Red Hat/Fedora monospaced default font. To me, even the current system font looks blurred and uneven when slight hinting is chosen instead of medium one. ~C -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Le Jeu 29 octobre 2009 14:30, Christoph Frieben a écrit : > > 2009/10/29 Tomasz Torcz: >> There was a change to font properties which changed "Best shapes" >> to turn on slight hinting. > > Good point, but I wonder why this change has been made. It suffices to > look at two attachments to > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=198082 > > namely > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=351609 > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=351613 > > which demonstrate that medium hinting used to give better results, > namely for MS fonts. It is well known that some old fonts like Microsoft core fonts have bad/buggy hinting (MS hides the problem by adding font-specific workarounds in its text stack). They should certainly never be used to evaluate if a general default is good or not. (that is also something to consider before activating the patented bytecode engine: in-fonts hints are not necessarily better than what freetype auto-computes in many cases) > However, this holds at least for Luxi Mono, too , > the traditional Red Hat/Fedora monospaced default font. Luxi Mono is not the Red Hat/Fedora monospaced font and is not even in the distribution. > To me, even the current system font looks blurred and uneven when > slight hinting is chosen instead of medium one. ~C Unfortunately it is very difficult to get two people to agree on the right hinting level. -- Nicolas Mailhot -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
2009/10/29 Nicolas Mailhot: > It is well known that some old fonts like Microsoft core fonts have bad/buggy > hinting (MS hides the problem by adding font-specific workarounds in its text > stack). They should certainly never be used to evaluate if a general default > is good or not. The empirical result remains, however, and it is consistent with that of any other font that I have looked at. > Luxi Mono is not the Red Hat/Fedora monospaced font and is not even in the > distribution. It was the default monospaced font for RHL 8/9, Fedora Core 1/2/3/4/5/6, RHEL 3/4/5 and still **is** for current RHEL 5.4. I thus consider legitimate to comment on it, too, as I expect to be not the only person being attached to using it .. > Unfortunately it is very difficult to get two people to agree on the right > hinting level. I find the effect quite deterring and was actually bothered by it before even getting aware that the default hinting had been altered. Any feedback by other users is thus welcome in order to rule out a single user impression. Finally, I'd be interested to know why the hinting has been changed at all. There is no bug ID or any factual reason given in the changelog of package gnome-settings-daemon. ~C -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Christoph Frieben wrote: > 2009/10/29 Nicolas Mailhot: > The empirical result remains, however, and it is consistent with that > of any other > font that I have looked at. > >> Luxi Mono is not the Red Hat/Fedora monospaced font and is not even in the >> distribution. > > It was the default monospaced font for RHL 8/9, Fedora Core 1/2/3/4/5/6, > RHEL 3/4/5 and still **is** for current RHEL 5.4. I thus consider legitimate > to > comment on it, too, as I expect to be not the only person being attached > to using it .. > The Luxi fonts I think you were referring to were removed in F-9 due to licensing concerns ( Bug 317641). Deji -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Le Jeu 29 octobre 2009 17:21, Christoph Frieben a écrit : > The empirical result remains, however, and it is consistent with that > of any other font that I have looked at. It is consistent for you. You'd need a massive test campaign to prove this is not subjective, not limited to a specific set of fonts, a particular hardware/screen resolution/dpi, etc. The internet is littered with opinions on font rendering that all disagree with each other. >> Luxi Mono is not the Red Hat/Fedora monospaced font and is not even in the >> distribution. > > It was the default monospaced font for RHL 8/9, Fedora Core 1/2/3/4/5/6, > RHEL 3/4/5 and still **is** for current RHEL 5.4. I thus consider legitimate > to > comment on it, too, as I expect to be not the only person being attached > to using it .. You may comment on it, but do not expect Fedora to care over-much about a component that was removed in Fedora 9 (4 release cycles ago, for legal reasons so it has 0 chance to get back in). For RHEL please go through RHEL channels. -- Nicolas Mailhot -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
2009/10/29 Nicolas Mailhot: > You may comment on it, but do not expect Fedora to care overmuch about a > component that was removed in Fedora 9 (4 release cycles ago, for legal > reasons so it has 0 chance to get back in). For RHEL please go through RHEL > channels. > > -- > Nicolas Mailhot I had already pointed out that this issue also affects the current default system font. Let's see what other people out there think about this issue. It's not like you are the supreme judge in this matter, and it's also not the first time that you show up as a hotspur on this mailing list .. -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Thu, 2009-10-29 at 10:20 +0100, Tomasz Torcz wrote: > On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 09:49:13AM +0100, Christoph Frieben wrote: > > I have the impression that since about 2 days ago the font rendering > > in Fedora rawhide is less good than before. Fonts appear fuzzier, and > > in particular Luxi Mono looks more deformed. There hasn't been a > > freetype update, thus some GNOME package might be responsible. > > I have noticed this effect on 2 different systems, one with an ATI > > There was a change to font properties which changed "Best shapes" > to turn on slight hinting. And why the hell are you still using Luxi Mono, anyway? that thing went out with the ark... -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Thu, 2009-10-29 at 17:59 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote: > > Le Jeu 29 octobre 2009 17:21, Christoph Frieben a écrit : > > > The empirical result remains, however, and it is consistent with that > > of any other font that I have looked at. > > It is consistent for you. You'd need a massive test campaign to prove this is > not subjective, not limited to a specific set of fonts, a particular > hardware/screen resolution/dpi, etc. The internet is littered with opinions on > font rendering that all disagree with each other. Of course, given the above, it's an interesting question why we're going around changing the defaults in post-Beta phase. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Le Jeu 29 octobre 2009 18:44, Christoph Frieben a écrit : > > 2009/10/29 Nicolas Mailhot: >> You may comment on it, but do not expect Fedora to care overmuch about a >> component that was removed in Fedora 9 (4 release cycles ago, for legal >> reasons so it has 0 chance to get back in). For RHEL please go through RHEL >> channels. > I had already pointed out that this issue also affects the current > default system font. Let's see what other people out there think about > this issue. It's not like you are the supreme judge in this matter, > and it's also not the first time that you show up as a hotspur on this > mailing list .. Why stop to this mailing list? It seems my nefarious influence extends much wider! http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/No_bundling_of_fonts_in_other_packages_(2008-07-24) http://www.advogato.org/person/yosch/diary.html?start=61 http://lintian.debian.org/tags/duplicate-font-file.html http://lintian.debian.org/tags/font-in-non-font-package.html Abandon hope all ye are surrounded -- Nicolas Mailhot -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Dne 29.10.2009 15:34, Nicolas Mailhot napsal(a): It is well known that some old fonts like Microsoft core fonts have bad/buggy hinting (MS hides the problem by adding font-specific workarounds in its text stack). They should certainly never be used to evaluate if a general default is good or not. (that is also something to consider before activating the patented bytecode engine: in-fonts hints are not necessarily better than what freetype auto-computes in many cases) I don't think we should back progress in order to be friendly to buggy closed Microsoft fonts. I know they are quite common outside of the Linux world, but I think a) our free fonts are now so good, that we could limit ourselves to this FSF-nirvana ghetto, it doesn't cost that much, b) many modern fonts (e.g., my preferred Inconsolata) just rely on real hinting being present, and it doesn't work that well with auto-hinter. Just because of this font, I have switched to freefont-freeworld and I cannot be more happy with it. Really looking forward to Behdad freeing us from the old freefont stuff. Matěj -- http://www.ceplovi.cz/matej/, Jabber: mceplceplovi.cz GPG Finger: 89EF 4BC6 288A BF43 1BAB 25C3 E09F EF25 D964 84AC One reason that life is complex is that it has a real part and an imaginary part. -- Andrew König -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Matěj Cepl writes: > I don't think we should back progress in order to be friendly to buggy > closed Microsoft fonts. I know they are quite common outside of the > Linux world, but I think > > a) our free fonts are now so good, that we could limit ourselves to > this FSF-nirvana ghetto, it doesn't cost that much, > b) many modern fonts (e.g., my preferred Inconsolata) just rely on > real hinting being present, and it doesn't work that well with > auto-hinter. Just because of this font, I have switched to > freefont-freeworld and I cannot be more happy with it. It would be nice if fonts like Inconsolata somehow set a flag that they require hinting. This would prevent the side effects on old fonts. Your post prompted me to try out Inconsolata in F11. I do not find the Inconsolata hinting all that impressive though. No hinting at all is indeed horrible. With full hinting, the "g" gets deformed on my screen, where it is quite good with medium hinting. The vertical stroke in the "a" is quite wide and distracting no matter which hinting is chosen. Back to DejaVu Sans Mono Book. /Benny -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Le Ven 30 octobre 2009 13:59, Benny Amorsen a écrit : > It would be nice if fonts like Inconsolata somehow set a flag that they > require hinting. This would prevent the side effects on old fonts. This could technically be done in fontconfig IIRC but it would require a lot of unglamorous manual testing and triaging. Which no one is volunteering to do. And before we go there (tackle problems that require manual testing) there is a lot of font problems that can be detected automatically, and need fixing too. -- Nicolas Mailhot -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:44:51 +0100, Christoph Frieben wrote: > I had already pointed out that this issue also affects the current > default system font. Let's see what other people out there think about > this issue. It's not like you are the supreme judge in this matter, > and it's also not the first time that you show up as a hotspur on this > mailing list .. My default system font looks better than 2 days ago, although not by much. I'd be fine with any setting. Is it what you're asking? -- Pete -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Adam Williamson wrote: > And why the hell are you still using Luxi Mono, anyway? that thing went > out with the ark... I'm not the person you are posing your question to, but I use Luxi Mono and can give you an answer: "Because it is a wonderful serif mono font. Can you suggest me an alternative? It looks like mono => sans nowadays." Best regards. -- Roberto Ragusamail at robertoragusa.it -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 14:00 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote: > Adam Williamson wrote: > > > And why the hell are you still using Luxi Mono, anyway? that thing went > > out with the ark... > > I'm not the person you are posing your question to, but I use Luxi Mono > and can give you an answer: > "Because it is a wonderful serif mono font. Can you suggest me an > alternative? It looks like mono => sans nowadays." I'm a big member of the 'fonts are subjective' bandwagon, but I'm _really_ surprised that anyone would consider the Luxi fonts to look better than the DejaVu ones. DejaVu is just a far more polished font set, which is why it was chosen by all major distros to replace Luxi years ago. You're literally the first person I've come across who seems to prefer the appearance of Luxi. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, I'm just surprised =) -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Adam Williamson wrote: > On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 14:00 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote: >> Adam Williamson wrote: >> >>> And why the hell are you still using Luxi Mono, anyway? that thing went >>> out with the ark... >> I'm not the person you are posing your question to, but I use Luxi Mono >> and can give you an answer: >> "Because it is a wonderful serif mono font. Can you suggest me an >> alternative? It looks like mono => sans nowadays." > > I'm a big member of the 'fonts are subjective' bandwagon, but I'm > _really_ surprised that anyone would consider the Luxi fonts to look > better than the DejaVu ones. DejaVu is just a far more polished font > set, which is why it was chosen by all major distros to replace Luxi > years ago. You're literally the first person I've come across who seems > to prefer the appearance of Luxi. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, > I'm just surprised =) I've never said that Luxi fonts are better than DejaVu fonts. What I've said is that there is no alternative to Luxi Mono if one wants a serif monospaced font. I like to have a serif font in my shell; I find it more readable, even at small size. -- Roberto Ragusamail at robertoragusa.it -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 18:36 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote: > I've never said that Luxi fonts are better than DejaVu fonts. > What I've said is that there is no alternative to Luxi Mono > if one wants a serif monospaced font. > I like to have a serif font in my shell; I find it more readable, > even at small size. Ah, I missed the Serif wrinkle. Indeed DV doesn't provide a serif monospace font. I'm not aware of any one better than luxi there, maybe someone else is... -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On 2009/11/02 08:48 (GMT-0800) Adam Williamson composed: > On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 14:00 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote: >> Adam Williamson wrote: >> > And why the hell are you still using Luxi Mono, anyway? that thing went >> > out with the ark... >> I'm not the person you are posing your question to, but I use Luxi Mono >> and can give you an answer: >> "Because it is a wonderful serif mono font. Can you suggest me an >> alternative? It looks like mono => sans nowadays." Have you looked at Consolas? > I'm a big member of the 'fonts are subjective' bandwagon, but I'm > _really_ surprised that anyone would consider the Luxi fonts to look > better than the DejaVu ones. DejaVu is just a far more polished font > set, which is why it was chosen by all major distros to replace Luxi > years ago. You're literally the first person I've come across who seems > to prefer the appearance of Luxi. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, > I'm just surprised =) FWIW, of all the distros I've sampled, all but one puts DejaVu and/or Bitstream Vera at the top of the fontconfig alias lists. The odd one out is openSUSE, which places Arial, Times New Roman and Consolas firsts, and the Agfa fonts (no longer included on the DVD) seconds, ahead of DejaVus in third, and Liberations in fourth, followed oddly in fifth/sixth by SUSE/Bitstream Vera. openSUSE has another exception in putting Verdana between Agfa's Albany AMT and DejaVu Sans. IIRC, all put Nimbus ahead of Luxi -- The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 1 Corinthians 7:3 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
Le Lun 2 novembre 2009 18:36, Roberto Ragusa a écrit : > I've never said that Luxi fonts are better than DejaVu fonts. > What I've said is that there is no alternative to Luxi Mono > if one wants a serif monospaced font. > I like to have a serif font in my shell; I find it more readable, > even at small size. It depends on how serify you want it of course. You have many monospace fonts that are more serify than DejaVu Sans Mono without using all the serifs you'd expect in a completely serif font (Anonymous Pro, Incosolata, etc). Monospace is pretty much the antithesis of serif, subtle serifs look good at high resolution on paper, monospace is used on computer screens at low res. Serif monos usually end up with courrier-like blocky serifs. And lastly, Verily shows DejaVu Serif could be mono-ified, if someone was willing to pour some energy in it (http://delubrum.org/) -- Nicolas Mailhot -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 10:18 PM, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 14:00 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote: >> Adam Williamson wrote: >> >> > And why the hell are you still using Luxi Mono, anyway? that thing went >> > out with the ark... >> >> I'm not the person you are posing your question to, but I use Luxi Mono >> and can give you an answer: >> "Because it is a wonderful serif mono font. Can you suggest me an >> alternative? It looks like mono => sans nowadays." > > I'm a big member of the 'fonts are subjective' bandwagon, but I'm > _really_ surprised that anyone would consider the Luxi fonts to look > better than the DejaVu ones. DejaVu is just a far more polished font > set, which is why it was chosen by all major distros to replace Luxi > years ago. You're literally the first person I've come across who seems > to prefer the appearance of Luxi. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, > I'm just surprised =) > Here's another one, if you like to :-) I've been a big fan of Luxi fonts from the days of RedHat 8.0. They make my day when I look at the terminal or glance through a code snippet. I did even contact Mr. Chuck Bigelow to find out any possibility of licensing Luxi fonts under an open source license, when Fedora decided to drop them. Today I use a locally built RPM (source files grabbed from Xorg website) with a custom fontconfig file. I must say, it's all a matter of preference :-) > -- > Adam Williamson > Fedora QA Community Monkey > IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org > http://www.happyassassin.net > > -- > fedora-devel-list mailing list > fedora-devel-list@redhat.com > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list > -- Cheers, Rajeesh http://rajeeshknambiar.wordpress.com -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Re: Font rendering slightly degraded in recent rawhide
On 11/02/2009 04:26 PM, Rajeesh K Nambiar wrote: > I did even contact Mr. Chuck Bigelow to find out any > possibility of licensing Luxi fonts under an open source license, when > Fedora decided to drop them. For what it is worth, when we dropped them, I contacted the upstream copyright holder as well, and they opted not to relicense those fonts. Hopefully at some point they may revisit that decision. ~spot -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
