Fonts: Subpixel Smoothing doesn't work as it should

[cb951303]

Hello everyone,
a quick search about the issue didn't reveal much so I decided to ask.
Choosing "Appearance Preferences > Fonts > Subpixel Smoothing = FULL" changes the look of fonts but it's still not smooth enough especially compared to Ubuntu. Is there a quick fix for this?

Thank you in advance

[crolma4]

Maybe your graphics drivers could be better. This is the main reason I installed (nVidia) proprietary drivers.

[userid]

Hi all, first post here and I'd like to say fedora's is a great community.

Same fonts issue here.

I've installed latest nVidia beta drivers (thanks leigh!) but my fonts are not satisfying.
I do have ms fonts, tweaked a bit .font.conf ecc.

Before installing Fedora, I tried Ubuntu. Fonts were better. I've just booted a live cd with pclinuxos and - without propriertary drivers - fonts were better!

S**t.

I love Fedora but well readable fonts are way too much important.

I'm sure I'm missing something but don't know what.. any help will be much apprec.

Thanks

Franco

[bluesurfer]

Ubuntu uses special patches for subpixel hinting. These patches are enabled per default only in ubuntu (and ubuntu based distros).

Take a look at this thread:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=186789

[rdieter]

A couple of points:
1 I believe the smoothing mentioned here is patented and nonfree, and not supported by fedora's freetype. If you really want it, you can get freetype-freeworld from rpmfusion.org for enabled support
2 be aware that ubuntu's "special patches" aren't accepted or supported by upstream projects (freetype, etc...),

[userid]

thanks for the feedback.

btw, amazing timing.. i've just managed to set up cleartype fonts as per a thread related
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...d.php?t=175874

now fonts are really good but cpu loading is increased to a bit unhealthy average rate (30 to 40%). i don't see though which process is overloading it..

a bad compiled rpm? maybe?

anyway, good font rendering is just too much important so that even a good os may lose appeal without it.. at canonical they have understood it well

[bluesurfer]

Originally Posted by rdieter

A couple of points:
1 I believe the smoothing mentioned here is patented and nonfree, and not supported by fedora's freetype. If you really want it, you can get freetype-freeworld from rpmfusion.org for enabled support
2 be aware that ubuntu's "special patches" aren't accepted or supported by upstream projects (freetype, etc...),

1) Yes, nearly everything which affects subpixel hinting in any way is patented by Apple or Microsoft. Anyway, there are a lot of countries in the world where software patents are not valid (like EU). The freetype-freeworld package from rpmfusion does not contain the same subpixel hinting patches like ubuntu's. And, you also have to patch cairo libxft and fontconfig to get nice hinted fonts.

2) That's right.

Originally Posted by userid

anyway, good font rendering is just too much important so that even a good os may lose appeal without it.. at canonical they have understood it well

That is exactly my opinion, too. But Fedora's philosophy is (and always was) to provide only free software. From this view Fedora is at least consistent.