HOWTO install infinality font-settings for Debian

[DebbyIan]

Why are you posting Arch material on this forum? Debian is not Arch.
This is the sort of attitude you get from Arch.

Second the overwhelming view expressed in the latter part of these forum posts is that Infinality is no longer necessary as the results from the standard package are 'good enough'. Personally I am fine with this.

Don't post another Arch link in this forum.

[jim_p]

I am posting links on aur to prove that infinality patches DO exist for freetype 2.7 and 2.8, since there are NO changelogs, patches or something similar on infinality's github repo*, which in turn has been dead for a year now.

* https://github.com/bohoomil/fontconfig-ultimate

And no, the results on plain freetype are not good for me. Here is an image to prove how bad white text renders on black background on plain freetype. If that is not a problem for you, please do not read my posts.



---edit
Ok, the image shows the font rendering in its absolute worse, I admit it.

[debiman]

I am posting links on aur to prove that infinality patches DO exist for freetype 2.7 and 2.8

you can always look at the PKGBUILD and try to reproduce the compiling procedure on a debian system.

[msimsek]

Infinality patches are now in mainstream, you just need to enable them. Which is pretty easy to do actually.

Just download the source of 2.8, get the dependencies (you can check PKGBUILD for that), compile and checkinstall. This will also install development headers, so just create a empty package for libfreetype6-dev. You can also do things the Debian way and seperate the packages and all, but you don't really need that for your own use.

Configuration is simple and done from one file. Check here: https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs ... tml#builds

[jim_p]

@debiman
I can't. Before finding bubuxp's debs on google drive, I had tried many, MANY times to build a proper package and failed. So I have used his ever since. And when freetype on the main repo was updated and broke infinality, I mailed bubuxp, literally BEGGING for an update.
And yes, packaging for debian is hard, at least for me.

@msimsek
Where are the infinality patches inside the source of 2.8? I can not find anything, neither inside the original freetype source*, nor on the one provided by packages.debian.org**

* https://download.savannah.gnu.org/relea ... 2.8.tar.gz
** http://http.debian.net/debian/pool/main ... rig.tar.gz

I insist on a working, infinality patched, freetype because good looking fonts are part of my setup which I use to do my everyday work. That's why I provided the aur links for infinality patched freetype 2.7 and 2.8. And I admit I almost lost my mind when I read on github that there will be no infinality patches from freetype 2.7 and on

https://github.com/bohoomil/fontconfig- ... issues/171

And for the screenshot above. I did not remember how to change opera to its dark theme in order to show the "white text on black background" problem, so I used its private mode which has white text on black background for the inactive tabs.

[debiman]

I can't.

the absolute lack of detail in this answer tells me that you haven't even tried...

I insist on a working etc. etc.

you know what the answer to that is, in the open source community, don't you?
roll up your sleeves and start working.

because good looking fonts are part of my setup which I use to do my everyday work.

so the implication is that you cannot do your work without infinality. amusing.
have you explored all avenues to make your existing, standard freetype installation look better?
methinks not.
here's a sample of typeface with vanilla freetype:

good enough for me.

also, did you see & read this?
note that these instructions are for archlinux, but can easily be applied to debian.

[DebbyIan]

Has he even read the differences in features between 2.7 and 2.8? The new release largely brings completion of Open Type variations. Unless you're using OT faces you're not going to see any useful differences between the two releases.

If he gives me $79 I will send him a cracked DVD of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. Inside it there is Microsoft Clear Type technology (the best yet) which has been making all the difference in font display tech since like 2006.

[hadrons123]

The infinality font setup is obsolete and its not compatible with any recent versions of freetype. Please refrain from using infinality.

[jim_p]

As of July 6th 2017, freetype 2.8 is now on testing. What do I need to do before upgrading to it? I guess I have to remove fontconfig-infinality and the infinality patched libfreetype6. Anything else? Some file or folder? I see there is "/etc/X11/Xsession.d/99infinality-settings" which will probably remain...

Can I also remove the fonts which were installed as dependencies of fontconfig-infinality?

Code: Select all

$ apt-cache depends fontconfig-infinality
  Depends: fontconfig-config
  Depends: fonts-dejavu
  Depends: fonts-liberation
  Depends: fonts-noto-hinted
  Depends: fonts-noto-unhinted
  Depends: fonts-noto-mono
...

Do I have to run "dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config again? If so, what do I choose?

[bester69]

I keep using old version with stretch, They works great in KDE5 with "Segoe UI" (Win10) (didnt like last version)

fontconfig-infinality_1-2_all.deb
freetype-infinality_2.4.12-1_all.deb
libfreetype-infinality6_2.4.12-1_amd64.deb

Fonts looks perfect with this infinality version.

[jim_p]

Why would you do such a thing? Freetype 2.4 (patched or not) is from wheezy's era. I think it will cause problems on your system because every single app will be compiled against libfreetype 2.6 that is on the repo.

[jim_p]

So, ~24 hours without infinality. First of all, i removed fontconfig-infinality and the patched libfreetype6 as described in bubuxp's instructions, like so

Code: Select all

# dpkg --purge --force-depends libfreetype6 fontconfig-infinality
# apt-get install libfreetype6

then deleted /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99infinality-settings by hand and rebooted. I kept the fonts which were listed as dependencies for fontconfig-infinality because they are kodi's dependencies as well. First thing I noticed after the reboot is that all text looks a little bit taller and the font on the terminal (andale mono 10, black or colored text on white background) looks fatter. White text on dark background looks good enough and white text on black background looks as crappy as on my screenshot some posts ago (that was freetype 2.7 or 2.8 from experimental) . Black text on white background however looks great. On web pages, in general, text seems a bit bigger, unless it is on pages, eg facebook, where 9pt or smaller size is forced, where it is small enough to be unreadable unless I move my head closer to the monitor. Plus, text on some pages is rendered completely un-antialiased and appears blocky.

So, I thought of changing my fonts after all these years. A friend advised me to switch to noto 10 or roboto 10. They look good, but they are slimmer than verdana 10 and they have a small issue. Although they are both sans serif fonts, they do have serifs for greek letters (screenshots here*).
So I rejected them. I also changed my terminal's font to hack 12. I can not use inconsolata there because it does not support greek encoding.

What else can I do? I do not have an ~/.Xresources file and xrdb -query now only returns this

Code: Select all

$ xrdb -query
*customization:   -color

Do I have to make one now? And on dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config I have selected native, automatic and yes for the options provided.

* https://imgur.com/a/7MjIa

[rhy7s]

here's a sample of typeface with vanilla freetype:

good enough for me.

I understand your response to the attitude of the poster you're replying to, but the Ubuntu font with that many pixels to play with isn't much of a test of rendering quality.

[bester69]

Why would you do such a thing? Freetype 2.4 (patched or not) is from wheezy's era. I think it will cause problems on your system because every single app will be compiled against libfreetype 2.6 that is on the repo.

I usually dont know what im doing, I just check it works!. Ive both installed libfreetype-infinality6_v2.4.12 and libfreetype6_v2.6,

All apps works greats with libfreetype-infinality6_v2.4.12 installed, So why to change it if it works perfect??