[Mini-HOWTO] X.org & font

solka · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 10:43 pm Post subject: [Mini-HOWTO] X.org & font

Mini-HOWTO X.org & font

Author: solka (solkanar[at]ngi[dot]it)
Version: 1.1
Update 1.1 of 18-06-2004: added Firefox 0.9 and some informations about its installation.
Most updated version: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts

Summary

Why
emerging the necessary packages
Modify config files
Services restart
Mozilla Firefox 0.8 e 0.9
Useful topics
Thanks

1. Why

After changing the x server from Xfree to X.org many people (as me) had many problems
about the font rendering and the antialiasing. This mini-HOWTO has the purpose to give
a possible solution to the problem.

2. emerging the necessary packages

Supposing x.org installed correctly, you have to emerge the font packages, some of them
are already installed, but I advise to install them again.

These are the necessary packages:

media-libs/freetype
media-fonts/corefonts
media-fonts/freefonts

However I advise to install these fonts too:

media-fonts/artwiz-fonts
media-fonts/sharefonts
media-fonts/terminus-font
media-fonts/ttf-bitstream-vera
media-fonts/unifont

Emerge them:

RinkyDinks_RJ · n00b Joined: 12 Aug 2003 Posts: 42

In #2, you have media-fonts/freefonts listen twice.

Also, for xfs, there is a config file located at /etc/X11/fs/config

You should also add any new fonts-directories to that file too--as xfs uses it to do whatever it does to the font directories. [Forgot the term(s)].

solka · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 7:31 am Post subject:

Thanks for the note.
I think that the config file /etc/X11/fs/config is checked only if there is the FontPath "unix:-1" in xorg.conf so adding font directories in the former file is irrelevant...
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knopper · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 9:52 am Post subject:

But it's also not needed to start xfs or am I wrong?

solka · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:30 am Post subject:

Mmh...you are right. However I tried commenting all font lines in /etc/X11/fs/config, restarting xfs and x.org and it worked the same...well, I'll add the configuration of xfs config file just to make this howto more complete

Thank you all.
_________________
"The only reason of the man's sadness
is that he can't stay peacefully in his room."

Blaise Pascal

knopper · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:43 pm Post subject:

The howto works like a charm, though there's one thing I encountered.

The fonts weren't anti-aliased in Firefox until I did "fc-cache -fv" as root. This builds some indexes and more stuff for freetype fonts which are used by Firefox as explained by this howto.

Maybe it's something to put in the howto?

Anyway, great howto! (ahum, "mini" howto...)

Sastraxi · Apprentice Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 258

I'm pretty sure the /etc/init.d/xfs restart command will do that caching for you, though I'm not exceptionally sure.

Master One · l33t Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 754 Location: Austria

Nice try to gather all the fonts info spread over many topics in this forum.

You may want to adjust the order of your fonts in xorg.conf, because the first match is used, so it makes sense to have all TTF on top of the list.

As there seem to be no need for XFT at all, you may want to skip any explaination about /etc/X11/fs/config, remove xfs from the default runlevel, and stop xfs once and for all, it likely only eats resources.

I also did a lot of reading about X & fonts, tried a lot of things, and it looks pretty nice now, also there seem to be still some issues, especially as I do not know much about the various fonts themselves. I should have an old Corel Draw CDset here somewhere, with a whole bunch of nice TTF, I think I should try do find and extract the fonts to my Gentoo workstation :wink:

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knopper · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:56 pm Post subject:

Master One · l33t Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 754 Location: Austria

Ok, this is weird. I just recompliled mozilla-firefox 0.9-r1 with the option "moznoxft", but then I don't get any antialiasing / hinting / subpixel-rendering at all, as expected. Everything else it set up correctly, and I tried it with xfs turned on and off.

So how do you exect to get antialiased fonts without xft?

I must have missed something. I am gonna recomplile firefox without "nomozxft" again now, it seems to be working this way, except some fonts look a little bulky then, like the menulist on top of this forum page (I mean the "FAQ | Search | ..."), but this may he due to subpixel-rendering & hinting.

It is very strange, it seems not to be possible to get the same look like under WinXP. As I already mentioned in another threat, I have two workstation here side by side, one with Gentoo, the other with WinXP, each using an equal LCD panel.

On WinXP the ClearType rendering is enabled, the main difference is, that some fonts (like the forum-menulist) look clear and sharp, and the rest gets rendered well, but under Gentoo everything gets rendered differently and some a little too much (like the forum-menulist, with then looks a little foggy and bulky). BTW I have copied the WinXP fonts-folder to my Gentoo machine, so I have access to the same TTFs there.

One other thing: With firefox compiled with "moznoxft" the listing of the fonts in the preferences (Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Fonts & Colors) looks totally different. For example instead of

Sastraxi · Apprentice Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 258

I have the exact same problems with this guide. Everything else is BEAUTIFUL.

solka · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:39 pm Post subject:

Master One: I noticed that without the use flag moznoxft the fonts of the menubar were antialiased but web page fonts weren't. Recompiling Firefox 0.9 with this flag set gave me the opposite result, that is web page fonts antialiased and normal menu fonts. However please pay attention to the fonts selected in the preferences because they should be Bits-bitstream-* and not bitstream-bistream-*, in fact with the latter font set the web fonts are awful for me.
About freetype, I compiled it without "bindist".
And I must agree with you that fonts in linux are a kind of mistery

Please tell me if compiling Firefox with "moznoxft" and selecting the correct fontset make things better, otherwise I'd like to find a common solution to add in my HOWTO.
_________________
"The only reason of the man's sadness
is that he can't stay peacefully in his room."

Blaise Pascal

solka · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:42 pm Post subject:

Master One · l33t Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 754 Location: Austria

solka · Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 1:40 pm Post subject:

Master One · l33t Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 754 Location: Austria

I think we then should open a new threat in the forum (not under documentation, tips & tricks) to have an open discussion, so that other can also contribute to this problem, especially as some other seem to get the same results like me.

I'll be on holliday for about a week from the 2nd July, but we definitely should deal with this fonts issue after I'm back. In the meantime I'll start my own investigation, there is quite a lot to try. Actually I'm using FVWM2, so no additional software (like the gnome-settings-daemon) is involved. I really can't believe, that it's not possible to get a real good fronts setup under linux.
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Sastraxi · Apprentice Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 258

I think part of the reason we're having major problems is that Firefox actually uses *pango* and its xft backend for its fonts, if you don't specify moznoxft. Thus, changing settings in the gnome manager can help, but we do get the stupid glyphs... the stupid smooth 'x', the 'k' with hardly any diagonal stroke, etc... but I think that this *may* just be the font we're using -- I think I've seen that ugly font, it's the sans one they put in for things like "Verdana" when they don't have the actual font to work with.

I guess I didn't say much of use, but I'm really trying to find what fonts in X are all about. If you ask me, "X" in some respects is just too old and confusing to be useful these days.

Just a little addition, ldd says firefox isn't a dynamic executable. If it was statically linked with all of the libraries at compile-time, could this be part of the problem?
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plbe · l33t Joined: 01 May 2004 Posts: 661

I had the same problem as one of the previous posters I compiled firefox with moznoxft flag and fonts looked like crap, I emerged again without that flag and only truetype and everything worked great although I didn't have xfree previously installed I guess that could be why

Master One · l33t Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 754 Location: Austria

I also installed xorg-x11 from scratch, so there was no Xfree on this system before, but I don't think this has something to do with these font problems.

Next I am gonna try to install some more TTFs from an old Corel CD set, it may be due to the selection of fonts here in my workstation.
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BlindSpy · Apprentice Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 263

Just wanted to say GREAT GUIDE. This is very important information and i think it should be made a part of the FAQ. mods?

thanks again for the good work.
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Symlinks to:
xorg.conf

torklingberg · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 86

media-fonts/corefonts is masked. Nothing to worry about or?

Bash[DevNull] · Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2003 Posts: 333

Hm, it will be good practice if you all publish screenshot with results, so i and any other can compare results!
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torklingberg · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 86

I had two issues with the HOWTO:

1. artwiz changed my mouse cursor. Moving FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/artwiz/" to the end of the list fixed that.

2. running "/etc/init.d/xdm stop" from within X made my computer freeze completely.

BlindSpy · Apprentice Joined: 20 Mar 2004 Posts: 263

ISSUES:

1. I've did the 0.9 guide and I didnt have an user.js file so I just made one. It seemed to make some fonts anti-alias but not all.
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Symlinks to:
xorg.conf

Sastraxi · Apprentice Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 258

From my last post, I recompiled firefox without moznoxft... and it looks amazing. Thanks a lot for the guide, but I still do recommend changing that "moznoxft" tip =)
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