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I agree that the defaults are atrocious, but freetype can be configured and the options are limitless.

by naoqj 5y ago

von_lohengramm 5y ago
Linux font rendering has come a long way in the last couple years. With TrueType2 and Windows fonts taken from an installer ISO (and not the ancient corefonts package), you can actually get some overall mostly okay font rendering. Every now and again, the hinting bugs out and it looks unreadable, but its far better than the olden days.
- eMSF 5y ago
  What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? And how would installing those newer Microsoft fonts affect font rendering elsewhere than where they are used (not at all by the desktop environment by default, and as to web sites, it depends on what you use)? IIRC the last big-ish change for me was around 15 years ago when some patent-encumbered patches were enabled by default by (some) Linux distributions. Which is okay for me because overall I think freetype font rendering is better than that in Windows with most fonts, the arguable exception being certain Microsoft fonts – however, freetype has the additional advantage that it rarely if ever produces pixelated ugliness with unhinted webfonts, unlike what I've seen happening with Windows.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? Some subpixel rendering techniques became unencumbered quite recently. So newer versions of freetype should have nicer subpixel rendering enabled by default.
TillE 5y ago
Maybe there's some configuration magic you can do, but I don't think I've ever seen decent font rendering on a Linux distro out of the box. It's one of the biggest reasons I've never switched to desktop Linux, and I'm not even one of those super picky people who talk about the intricacies of typefaces all day.
- kasabali 5y ago
  Ubuntu's font rendering is really good in its stock configuration. But I understand libre licensed typefaces it ships with might not be to everyones liking.

I agree that the defaults are atrocious, but freetype can be configured and the options are limitless.

by naoqj 5y ago

I agree that the defaults are atrocious, but freetype can be configured and the options are limitless.

Linux font rendering has come a long way in the last couple years. With TrueType2 and Windows fonts taken from an installer ISO (and not the ancient corefonts package), you can actually get some overall mostly okay font rendering. Every now and again, the hinting bugs out and it looks unreadable, but its far better than the olden days.

eMSF 5y ago
What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? And how would installing those newer Microsoft fonts affect font rendering elsewhere than where they are used (not at all by the desktop environment by default, and as to web sites, it depends on what you use)? IIRC the last big-ish change for me was around 15 years ago when some patent-encumbered patches were enabled by default by (some) Linux distributions. Which is okay for me because overall I think freetype font rendering is better than that in Windows with most fonts, the arguable exception being certain Microsoft fonts – however, freetype has the additional advantage that it rarely if ever produces pixelated ugliness with unhinted webfonts, unlike what I've seen happening with Windows.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > What exactly has happened in the last couple of years? Some subpixel rendering techniques became unencumbered quite recently. So newer versions of freetype should have nicer subpixel rendering enabled by default.

TillE 5y ago

Maybe there's some configuration magic you can do, but I don't think I've ever seen decent font rendering on a Linux distro out of the box. It's one of the biggest reasons I've never switched to desktop Linux, and I'm not even one of those super picky people who talk about the intricacies of typefaces all day.

kasabali 5y ago
Ubuntu's font rendering is really good in its stock configuration. But I understand libre licensed typefaces it ships with might not be to everyones liking.