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font render

Graphical Environments, Managers, Multimedia & Desktop questions.
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xinxinz
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font render

#1 Post by xinxinz »

Does Debian enable subpixel default now?

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: font render

#2 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

I don't think so — subpixel rendering is covered by Microsoft patents :shock:

I may be wrong though.
deadbang

xinxinz
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Re: font render

#3 Post by xinxinz »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:I don't think so — subpixel rendering is covered by Microsoft patents :shock:

I may be wrong though.
But MS joined ONI

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Re: font render

#4 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

The ArchWiki states that subpixel rendering is disabled for licensing reasons in that distribution and I can't see Debian being any more flexible.

But I may be wrong :)
deadbang

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debiman
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Re: font render

#5 Post by debiman »

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/fo ... _rendering
Subpixel rendering is a technique to improve sharpness of font rendering by effectively tripling the horizontal (or vertical) resolution through the use of subpixels. On Windows machines, this technique is called "ClearType". Subpixel rendering is covered by Microsoft patents and disabled by default on Arch Linux. To enable it, you have to re-compile freetype2 and define the FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING macro, or use e.g. the AUR package freetype2-cleartype.
To enable subpixel rendering, make sure that correct pixel alignment (see above) is configured.
in other words, unlikely to be available on debian.

i use said AUR package, and i must say the difference isn't so big.
existing font rendering options and good fonts are sufficient.

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stevepusser
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Re: font render

#6 Post by stevepusser »

Ahem.
freetype (2.3.9-3) unstable; urgency=low

* Drop spurious Suggests: on libfreetype6-dev. Closes: #363937.
* debian/patches-freetype/enable-subpixel-rendering.patch: enable subpixel
rendering features, used by libcairo and xft to provide LCD colour
filtering. This is considered no more or less evil than the bytecode
interpreter which we also enable.

* Move debian/libfreetype6.copyright to debian/copyright, and selectively
install it to the single binary package in debian/rules; the same
copyright file is used for all the binaries anyway via symlinks, so
there's no reason it shouldn't ship as debian/copyright.
Closes: #381228.
* Clip redundant LICENSE.TXT and GPL.TXT files from the
libfreetype6-dev package. Closes: #459802.

-- Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:09:50 -0700
MX Linux packager and developer

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pawRoot
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Re: font render

#7 Post by pawRoot »

imho the default font rendering in Debian is abysmal, i hope they will do something about it one day...

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Re: font render

#8 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

pawRoot wrote:imho the default font rendering in Debian is abysmal
Have you created ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf to configure them to your tastes?

Here is mine: https://github.com/Head-on-a-Stick/conf ... fonts.conf

^ With that configuration the fonts in my Debian testing system look *much* better than they do in Win10 (for example).
deadbang

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debiman
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Re: font render

#9 Post by debiman »

stevepusser wrote:Ahem.
freetype (2.3.9-3) unstable; urgency=low
* Drop spurious Suggests: on libfreetype6-dev. Closes: #363937.
* debian/patches-freetype/enable-subpixel-rendering.patch: enable subpixel
rendering features, used by libcairo and xft to provide LCD colour
filtering. This is considered no more or less evil than the bytecode
interpreter which we also enable.

* Move debian/libfreetype6.copyright to debian/copyright, and selectively
install it to the single binary package in debian/rules; the same
copyright file is used for all the binaries anyway via symlinks, so
there's no reason it shouldn't ship as debian/copyright.
Closes: #381228.
* Clip redundant LICENSE.TXT and GPL.TXT files from the
libfreetype6-dev package. Closes: #459802.
-- Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:09:50 -0700
i stand corrected, and gladly so.
but i don't understand the text; does this mean subpixel rendering is enabled by default on debian's freetype?

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Re: font render

#10 Post by pawRoot »

@Head_on_a_Stick

My fonts looks fine, i was just talking about the default settings.

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Re: font render

#11 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

pawRoot wrote:i was just talking about the default settings.
Debian doesn't do configuration (generally speaking), it just supplies the tools.

Distributions like MX Linux offer the polish that Debian's vanilla desktops lack, if that's what you're after.
deadbang

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