So after a lively debate over the merits of different Linux distributions, I've decided to give up and move to Windows 7. Or maybe it's just that I'm forced to use it from time to time.
As you know, if you want to get subpixel rendering and decent anti-aliasing at all point sizes, you have to turn on Cleartype which has a strange idea of how to hint the letters to ostensibly make the font crisper and more readable. Instead it just makes the letters look funny. I guess the silver lining is that if you can't tell in a screenshot if you're looking at KDE or Windows, the fonts are the giveaway. Anyway, I've found a utility that makes the Windows fonts bearable to look at. It's called GDI++[1] and it replaces the cleartype font rendering (toggle-able at run-time) with freetype. The results are very nice indeed. I will never use Windows without this utility, when I am forced to use Windows. The second windows tip is this nice little script[2] that lets you do the alt-click thing to drag a window. This defaults to the capslock key, but the effect is the same. This little utility is essential if you're stuck running Windows 7 on a netbook as normally Windows, in it's wisdom, will no longer let you move a window past the edge of a screen, making life on small netbook screens untenable. [1] http://drwatson.nobody.jp/gdi++/download-en.html [2] http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/get-the-linux-altwindow-drag-functionality-in-windows/ So while you're waiting to decide if Debian is stable enough yet, or RHEL's latest release is new enough, or if you're like me and waiting for Fedora 14 before you finally upgrade, and have to be on Windows, maybe this will help you out. -------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info (unsubscribe here): http://uug.byu.edu/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
