HOWTO install infinality font-settings for Debian

[asta]

Great! Thanks to you I was able to build and install the 32bit libs for stretch. Now I just need to find a good font
I uploaded everything pbuilder built here: https://mega.nz/#F!gA0RiDxT!YxBK7qeK5T96ILawniOYfw
Maybe the libraries are of use for somebody else too.

[stevepusser]

I'm experimenting with OBS, I will post the new packages as soon as they're ready (I need some little change to let OBS compile them and then I should test the Jessie packages in Testing).

Do you know if there is some similar build service but with Testing support? I found other services in OBS documentation but I didn't find this exact information.

I don't know of any offhand--maybe some other user here can come up with one.

[BubuXP]

I found a problem in my fontconfig-infinality.
To fix it before I release an updated version, do the following:

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$ cd /etc/fonts/infinality.d/
# rm $(ls /usr/share/fontconfig/infinality.avail/fonts-settings/)
# fc-cache -f
$ fc-cache -f

I thought that activating all the fonts configurations was a good idea, but it wasn't. They must be picked out, depending on the installed fonts (I will explain how to do it or I will find an automated solution).


On the other side, OBS seems nice, It could be used without problems for Jessie packages (it creates even a repository that can be added to /etc/apt/sources.list).
But in Jessie it uses old libraries to compile, and as dependencies it could need with libraries that aren't in Testing anymore (for example freetype from Jessie needs an old libpng that is still in Stretch, but I don't know if it will be removed soon, and maybe old libraries means slower, less optimized binaries).
For Jessie (and Wheezy if someone requests it) I will publish the repository soon. For testing/unstable, I will continue to compile the packages by myself, until I find some better alternative (but if you want you can use the Jessie repo).

[stevepusser]

But in Jessie it uses old libraries to compile, and as dependencies it could need with libraries that aren't in Testing anymore (for example freetype from Jessie needs an old libpng that is still in Stretch, but I don't know if it will be removed soon, and maybe old libraries means slower, less optimized binaries).

Yeah, that's going to be a puzzler. On one hand, I like to backport newer packages to Stable without upgrading other libraries from the Jessie base as much as possible. On the other hand, as you say, those libraries may be removed from upstream, breaking those packages for Stretch. You could add those libraries to your Jessie repo so they'd still be available to testing users, but the results could be unpredictable.

[BubuXP]

Updated packages.

New fontconfig-infinality with fixes (out of the box result should looks fine now).
EDIT: found an important bug in package upgrade procedure, I will fix it soon. Please don't update until I fix it.
EDIT2: new version online, now works. My negligence in the use of dpkg-divert caused the problem, now it should be rock-solid (I hope).

I updated also freetype-infinality, but the only thing that I really changed is the 99infinality-settings file, that you can download here without the need to re-download the whole freetype packages:
https://github.com/BubuXP/infinality-de ... y-settings

Packages in my Google Drive are in i386 and amd64, for Wheezy, Jessie (compiled with OBS) and Stretch/Sid (compiled "by hand").

For Wheezy and Jessie we got also the repositories (but not for Testing/Unstable).

For Wheezy:
get the repo key with

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wget -O - http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/BubuXP:/Infinality/Debian_7.0/Release.key | sudo apt-key add -

and then add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list

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deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/BubuXP:/Infinality/Debian_7.0/ ./

For Jessie, same as above, but with 8.0 version:
get the repo key with

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wget -O - http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/BubuXP:/Infinality/Debian_8.0/Release.key | sudo apt-key add -

and then add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list

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deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/BubuXP:/Infinality/Debian_8.0/ ./

then apt-get update and upgrade.

As usual, feedbacks are appreciated.

[XOMRK]

Updated packages.
New fontconfig-infinality with fixes (out of the box result should looks fine now).

TY very much!
I successfully did 4 steps: got the key, added repo link to sources, apt updated and upgraded.
Then, since I didn't install these packages before, i installed all infinality ones (fontconfig-infinality, libcairo2, libfreetype-infinality6, libfreetype6).

But I didn't find infctl.sh on my PC.

I'm newbie in Linux, please help me to implement ubuntu-like infinality fonts.

[XOMRK]

If I'd use 'fc–presets set' and choose 1 (combi), would I get improved fonts?

[BubuXP]

infctl.sh has become now fc-presets, but it looks like you got it.

This is the new version of Infinality, from http://bohoomil.com
The old version, the original, is no more maintained.

First you need to understand that Infinality is composed mainly by two things:
- the first and most important is the modified freetype (I call it freetype-infinality), and it can be configured changing the file /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99infinality-settings
- the second is a heavily customized fontconfig configuration (I call it fontconfig-infinality) that tells what fonts must be used instead of others, what rendering must be applied to a font, and many other things. It can be configured via fc-presets command.

While freetype-infinality is basically the same since the old days, the fontconfig-infinality made by bohoomil has changed from the original.
And one can use only freetype-infinality or only fontconfig-infinality, if well configured even only one of them can carry visual benefits.

The Ubuntu repo (https://launchpad.net/~no1wantdthisname ... ubuntu/ppa his maintainer introduced me via mail to deb packaging ) uses the new freetype-infinality, but it still uses the old fontconfig-infinality.

If you go in 99infinality-settings you can change the style (there is a list there to help you decide).

If you want to change something in fontconfig-infinality, change the three files you find in /etc/fonts/infinality.avail/ if you use the "free" or the "ms" presets. If you use "combi", you must change the files inside /etc/fonts/infinality.avail/combi/

Log off and log on when you make a change to be sure it will work.

By the way, in the future I will probably add the old fontconfig-infinality presets in my package, to have more choice (the old freetype-infinality styles are already there).

I forgot: go in my Google Drive repo (link in my signature) and read the instructions file inside the infinality folder of you distro. Skip the install part, as it's already installed, but read how to configure your ~/.Xresources file, and your fonts settings in the GNOME/KDE/other control panel.

[XOMRK]

TY very much again!
I''ll try to understand what to change in /etc/fonts/infinality.avail/combi/.
Sorry for my stupid questions in the future cause I'm still noob.

[squeeze]

Freetype 2.7 finally 'fixes' fonts on gnu/linux: http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/fr ... 00091.html. Hopefully in time for stretch...

[BubuXP]

Some days ago a new FreeType version has been released. It uses a new hinting engine (v40), derived from Infinality work but simplified, with no extra settings to change.
The only settings to change are the regular ones (hinting style, subpixel hinting, etc.) that can be modified in the desktop environment settings panel (or via ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf file).
I found that using "full" hinting now doesn't make the fonts looks ugly, but instead they looks a bit like when I used the Infinality style.

If you want and if you can, try to remove all freetype-Infinality packages you have installed (if you want the fontconfig-infinality also) and try the new vanilla FreeType.
It's still not present in Debian, but I compiled it for Stretch/Sid, you can find it here.
You should need to install only the libfreetype6 package, then after install and reboot you can try the 3 hinting styles (slight, medium or full) and see if one of them looks good for you as Infinality does.

I'm courious about your results.

[stevepusser]

Some days ago a new FreeType version has been released. It uses a new hinting engine (v40), derived from Infinality work but simplified, with no extra settings to change.
The only settings to change are the regular ones (hinting style, subpixel hinting, etc.) that can be modified in the desktop environment settings panel (or via ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf file).
I found that using "full" hinting now doesn't make the fonts looks ugly, but instead they looks a bit like when I used the Infinality style.

If you want and if you can, try to remove all freetype-Infinality packages you have installed (if you want the fontconfig-infinality also) and try the new vanilla FreeType.
It's still not present in Debian, but I compiled it for Stretch/Sid, you can find it here.
You should need to install only the libfreetype6 package, then after install and reboot you can try the 3 hinting styles (slight, medium or full) and see if one of them looks good for you as Infinality does.

I'm courious about your results.

I set up a Jessie OBS repo for your sources, and found that I just had to adapt and add the jessie-backports debhelper and dh-autoreconf to build your 2.7 sources. There's a way to get around the newer debhelper, but it requires reverting changes in your debian folder, and I'm too lazy to do that. Anyway, here's the instructions: https://software.opensuse.org/download. ... bfreetype6

[BubuXP]

Modified sources for OBS, try with these:
https://build.opensuse.org/source/home: ... ian.tar.xz
https://build.opensuse.org/source/home: ... .7-0.1.dsc

[stevepusser]

We also found out that if you have multiarch on 64-bit and have something like 32-bit Google Earth installed, you also need to upgrade libfreetype6:i386 at the same time to avoid a dependency breakage. If installed from a repository, that gets handled automatically.

[squeeze]

There is an interesting post in the german pro-linux.de forums:

(see http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/23965/co ... ments.html , comment by user glasen)

Roughly translated it states that:

1.) v40 only works with hinting "medium" and "full" while most distros use "slight" hinting
2.) to get all applications to use v40 you have to:

a.) delete /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-slight.conf and set a new one via

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 ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-hinting-full.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-hinting-full.conf

b.) explicitly change your desktop-hinting-config, ie. for gnome

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gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings hinting "full"

3.) nimbus-sans font (which is mostly substituted on linux for mac os x helvetica font and used on sites like f*-book is too old and contains no hinting information, therefore one has to search and delete all entries of nimbus in /etc/fonts/conf.avail

user glasen on that thread (scroll down) already exchanged nimbus with liberation-sans. the three files (30-metric-aliases.conf, 45-latin.conf, 60-latin.conf) have to be moved to /etc/fonts/conf.available (after backing up the original ones) or without backup to ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d

@stevepusser & BubuXP: Thanks for the OBS repo and packaging work, i'm still hoping it gets included in stretch but fear that .0 versions won't get packaged.