About the LCD ClearType patch

[vmamonov]

Perhaps it is the vodka

Yes, vodka is the best font smoother, and not only font! "there are no ugly girls, there is very few of vodka"

[traveler]

Perhaps it is the vodka

Yes, vodka is the best font smoother, and not only font! "there are no ugly girls, there is very few of vodka"

There is no such thing as rape, only surprise sex. Yes, that's retarded. No Debian Women were harmed, though.
My text looks pretty clean. I will look again tomorrow to make sure.

[sconosciuto]

Hi everyone.

I know that libcairo2 1.10 is already patched, however I see some differences from libcairo2 1.8 patched (I used the one patched by Hadret). With libcairo2 1.8 my fonts look more smooth, so I tried to install libcairo2 1.10 patched (the one from hadret repo). However I can't see any difference from the official one.
Here there are two screenshots:
libcairo2 1.8

libcairo2 1.10

How can I patch libcairo2 1.10 to make the fonts look like the fonts in the first picture?
Some of you maybe think that the fonts in the second picture are better (they are less faded), but with a bigger screen and libcairo2 1.10 the fonts look more aliased. (I didn't try with libcairo2 1.8 patched, but I would like to keep libcairo2 1.10).

Any suggestions?

[eric1959]

Where did you get libcairo2 version 1.8 from ? Is it from here : http://debian.hadret.com/libcairo2/

Libcairo2 version 1.10 looks the same as the default from Debian...

[sconosciuto]

Yes, but libcairo2 1.10 from here. This is the changelog in the package:

Code: Select all

cairo (1.10.2-2.1) unstable; urgency=low

  * Non-maintainer upload.
  * Ported Ubuntu patches and settings. 

 -- Filip Chabik <hadret@gmail.com>  Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:46:20 +0100

So the patch is applied, but the result is what you see in the second screenshot.

[Globetrotter]

Yes, but libcairo2 1.10 from here. This is the changelog in the package:

Code: Select all

cairo (1.10.2-2.1) unstable; urgency=low

  * Non-maintainer upload.
  * Ported Ubuntu patches and settings. 

 -- Filip Chabik <hadret@gmail.com>  Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:46:20 +0100

So the patch is applied, but the result is what you see in the second screenshot.

Does this fix the issues with this: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 32#p353064

[eric1959]

I've tried to install libcairo2 version 1.8 manually ( dpkg -i )from http://debian.hadret.com/libcairo2/ , but it almost fucked up the whole system I can't remember all the messages, but the desktop just froze and I had to reboot. Luckily I had my own libcairo2 package http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 73#p336684 standby, so I reinstalled it with dpkg -i. After that I had to reinstall gdm ...

[Globetrotter]

It looks like it is best is to stay far far away from those files....

[eric1959]

It looks like it is best is to stay far far away from those files....

I guess so ....

I just had a look at this page : http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic ... ke-ubuntu/ Going to try in a VM

[Globetrotter]

It looks like it is best is to stay far far away from those files....

I guess so ....

I just had a look at this page : http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic ... ke-ubuntu/ Going to try in a VM

I'm curious if it works. I gave it a quick look and what i see is that you have to grab files from everywhere except from debian sources....

[eric1959]

you have to grab files frome everywhere except from debian sources...

These files are only patches....

[sconosciuto]

Maybe I remembered wrong and I got the packages from here, but I installed it time ago, when there still was libcairo2 1.8. libcairo2 from http://debian.hadret.com/libcairo2/ is too old, even Squeeze has an updated version of it, the version I took from Hadret repo was 1.8.10-6.1.
Unfortunately he removed that version, so I can't install it on my new system. I think I'll try to patch it by myself libcairo 1.8, because when I tried to patch libcairo2 1.10 there was no difference from the official one. (and I'll also solve this problem)

[Hadret]

Yes, but libcairo2 1.10 from here. This is the changelog in the package:

Code: Select all

cairo (1.10.2-2.1) unstable; urgency=low

  * Non-maintainer upload.
  * Ported Ubuntu patches and settings. 

 -- Filip Chabik <hadret@gmail.com>  Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:46:20 +0100

So the patch is applied, but the result is what you see in the second screenshot.

Patches are applied, but the most important (LCD ClearType) is applied against libxft2 package, not libcairo2. So if you want to have smoothing similar to which Ubuntu has, you need to update both libcairo2 and libxft2 package and then make comparison between 1.8.x and 1.10.x versions. Personally default packages from Debian worked for me and I provided patched packages as a request from few users, so there's possibility that the most important thing, are actually font settings.

I've tried to install libcairo2 version 1.8 manually ( dpkg -i )from http://debian.hadret.com/libcairo2/ , but it almost fucked up the whole system

Well, it's not weird, you downloaded and wanted to install pretty old version of libcairo2. I honestly forgot I provided this version outside PPA and though I forgot to remove it. It's dangerous to use it.

[sconosciuto]

Yes, I tried to patch xft, but nothing changed.
However I found something intersting (you were right, there's no need to patch anything): https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo ... LCD_filter

I added in my ~/.fonts.conf this

Code: Select all

  <match target="font">
    <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
  </match>

And now the fonts look good. They look like something between the fonts in the two screenshots I posted (and more similar to Qt4 apps).

[Globetrotter]

[quote="sconosciuto"]

Code: Select all

  <match target="font">
    <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
  </match>

This piece of code did the trick? Nothing else was changed?

[sconosciuto]

Yes, but you need libcairo2 1.10 from Debian unstable (I think).

[eric1959]

I went to this page : http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic ... ke-ubuntu/ and applied the patches ( libcairo2, libxft2 ). Fonts look sharper than what I first used, see http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 15#p347715

My own .fonts.conf :

Code: Select all

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <test name="family">
            <string>Candara</string>
            <string>Segoe</string>
            <string>Corbel</string>
            <string>Tahoma</string>
            <string>Verdana</string>
        </test>
        <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <test compare="more" name="weight">
            <const>medium</const>
        </test>
        <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
            <bool>false</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
   <match target="font" >
         <edit name="embeddedbitmap" mode="assign">
             <bool>false</bool>
         </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
            <const>rgb</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
            <const>hintfull</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <!-- lcdnone, lcddefault, lcdlight, lcdlegacy -->
<match>
    <edit name="lcdfilter" mode="assign"><const>lcddefault</const></edit>
    <edit name="dpi" mode="assign"><double>101</double></edit>
    </match>
    <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
    </fontconfig>

[andreas_1]

i finally have nice fonts in gtk applications, here's how:

1. i run testing, my libcairo2 version is 1.10, which is already patched, so nothing to do here
2. i made the following changes to my ~/.fonts.conf:


<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintmedium</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
<const>lcddefault</const>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>


with this, my kde and gtk fonts look exactly the same (as in, the gimp layer diff is a black square), see screenshots below. these changes are not to be confused with different hinting styles, which are more a matter of personal preference (kde uses hintmedium, gnome uses hintslight by default).

screenshot order is: iceweasel before (gtk|gnome default), iceweasel after (gtk|gnome fixed), konqueror (qt|kde)

[Hadret]

@andreas_1 thanks for posting this -- worked for me too (:

[eric1959]

Code: Select all

$apt-show-versions -a libcairo2
libcairo2 1.10.2-6.1 install ok installed
libcairo2 1.8.10-6           squeeze           ftp.nluug.nl
libcairo2 1.10.2-1.1~bpo60+1 squeeze-backports mozilla.debian.net
libcairo2 1.10.2-6.1         unstable          hadret.rootnode.net
libcairo2/unstable uptodate 1.10.2-6.1

After some upgrades you don't need to patch libcairo2 anymore ( like I told before http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.c ... ilter.html ).

But these lines are essential :

Code: Select all

<!-- lcdnone, lcddefault, lcdlight, lcdlegacy -->
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
<const>lcddefault</const>
</edit>
</match>

See : http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.c ... ueeze.html