Fonts

[Anonymous]

Any suggestions on how to improve fonts/rendition?
We are open to ideas.

Improvement is making something “better” that was “worse” before.
What is “worse” and what is “better”? Can one see it at all? …

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll go over from philosophy to practice. 😉

You’ve got a chance to choose between pair and unpair numbered photos (99 == 10), so what do you choose?

Please, compare only in pairs (same pictures), one against the other.

(1&2 / 3&4 / 5&6 / 7&8 / 9&99)

Please, DO NOT comment anything else except what you personally find better.

Please, DO NOT comment at all if you can’t see any differences.

I’ll try attaching zipped folder and also try to post them as single attachments.

They MUST always be viewed 1:1 (original size 1920 x 1080). That works on smaller screens too.

Please ignore Firefox not being able to render some font types (like rendering Wingdings as text instead of icons — that’s Firefox ESR problem).

[Anonymous]

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1st & 2nd pair

[Anonymous]

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3rd & 4th pair

[Anonymous]

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5th pair

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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For me, all the first ones of the pair seemed ‘better’

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Anonymous]

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Here four more screenshots. Same “rules” as before, only this time at 1280×800 (1:1).

[Anonymous]

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Firefox vs. Chromium / before vs. after

[Anonymous]

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Web Browser Test File

[Anonymous]

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Improve the font rendering — see attachment.

[Anonymous]

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The fonts configuration shared in your better_fonts zipfile merits a new tips-n-tricks topic.

Throughout the entire forum archive, I only found about half a dozen times where fontconfig has been mentioned.
Although fontconfig package is pre-installed in antiX17
(IOW, we do have commands + manpages available for: fc-cache, fc-cat, fc-list, fc-match, fc-pattern, fc-query, fc-scan, fc-validate )
and fontconfig-config package is installed on my system (sudo updatedb & locate installed-packages.txt) I can’t recall whether it was preinstalled…

…/etc/skel doesn’t contain a default // sample .font.config file
Hmm, font stuff isn’t my forte.
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d

v—————- some collected notes

https://sources.debian.org/src/fontconfig/2.11.0-6.7/conf.d/50-user.conf/
Load per-user customization files where stored on XDG Base Directory specification compliant places. it should be usually:
$HOME/.config/fontconfig/conf.d
$HOME/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf

https://wiki.debian.org/https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts
. . .
If you are installing bit map fonts you might need to enable this with dpkg-reconfigure:
# dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
Then enable bit maps font in the third screen.
. . .
fc-cache -fv
– rebuilds cached list of fonts (in ~/.config/fontconfig, older caches may also be in ~/.fontconfig)
. . .
You may also find the following useful to change the default font rendering:
$ dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
$ dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
. . .

===========================

(2008) https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/adjusting-font-size-t698.html

How does a person adjust the font size in antiX?
-=-
One way is to edit the /etc/slim.conf file and change the dpi on this line. 90 makes text smaller, 100 bigger.
xserver_arguments -dpi 96 -nolisten tcp

Another way is to edit the .fluxbox/overlay file to set font sizes for menu, toolbar etc.

(2008) https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/feedback-for-adding-fonts-to-antix-t848.html
“I’ve written a how-to for adding truetype fonts to antiX aimed at the beginning user.”
(click to read the archived howto. It may, or may not, still be accurate a decade later.)

(2017) https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/solved-changing-fonts-for-qt5-applications-t6792.html

I was able to set Qt5 applications fonts like rest gtk2 fonts after adding string to file /etc/environment: [code]
<[b]?[/b]xml version=’1.0′?>

<[b]![/b]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>hintfull</const>
</edit>
</match>

<match target=”font” >
<edit mode=”assign” name=”antialias” >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>[/code]
Now all Qt4 and Qt5 fonts look great, just like default GTK2 fonts with appropriate size, hinting, antialiasing and sub-pixel geometry!
I think, these adjustments should be included in antiX release by default, because without them Qt5 application’s fonts look very bad, but Qt4 application’s fonts are without proper sub-pixel geometry, why I said proper, because nowadays most PC users have LCD monitors, so RGB geometry is the most suitable for them. Also it is much easier for users to modify existing configuration file instead of creating a new one in case something doesn’t satisfy them.
. . .
[b]more to read in this archivedtopic: dolphin_oracle describing Qt5 font wrangling[/b]

(2015) https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/antix-15-b3-v-t5637-s75.html

suggest adding helplinks to reach preinstalled documentation which is (AFAICT) currently not easily discoverable.
. . .
file:///usr/share/doc/conky-std/docs.html
file:///usr/share/doc/conky-std/config_settings.html
file:///usr/share/doc/conky-std/variables.html
. . .
file:///usr/share/doc/python/FAQ.html
file:///usr/share/doc/fontconfig/fontconfig-user.html
file:///usr/share/doc/bittorrent/FAQ.html (or file:///usr/share/doc/bittorrent/ )
file:///usr/share/doc/p7zip-full/DOCS/MANUAL/index.htm
file:///usr/share/doc/menu/html/ch3.html

file:///usr/share/sane/xsane/doc/index.html
file:///usr/share/doc/libsane/html/sane-mfgs.html
file:///usr/share/cups/doc-root/index.html
file:///usr/share/doc/printer-driver-gutenprint/FAQ.html

[Anonymous]

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Somewhere (zipfile readme.txt?) you recommended “the Ubuntu fonts”. I’ve seen ’em preinstalled in other distros and I agree they looked nice.
Nice, as in, nice to have available. I’ll refrain from recommending them as the predefined default system font.
What are “the Ubuntu fonts”? How did you install them? Should their debfile package be added to antiX repo, or its something already in debian’s repos?

noto (the “no tofu” fontset created by google)
I found them installable via synaptic. Ironically, when I viewed ’em using “font-manager” gui… quite a few of the glyphs were displayed as tofu rectangles.
The package installation added 16.3MB, so no, I wouldn’t favor finding it preinstalled.

ttf-mscore-blahblah-installer
it’s 5MB, and guessing it would compress to only 3MB within the ISO.
We already have “bitstream-vera” and “dejavu” preinstalled, and frankly I couldn’t find an improvement comparing those vs equivalents within the mscore package. Also, the wingdings and several other fontfaces in the mscore package displayed tofu rectangles when I tried to preview ’em using “font-manager”.

Mentioned elsewhere, fonts just aren’t my bag. My sole font consideration is this: I strive to NEVER see a serif (footed) font.
If mscore were preinstalled, I suppose I would not uninstall, I would just manually weed out, delete, most of the extraneous fonts
(FWIW, locally, I provide support for machines used by groups of young, and groups of elderly users. Having too many available choices in fontpicker is daunting/overwhelming for some of them.)

Because LibreOffice is preinstalled in antiX FULL, inclusion of a few more additional fonts (like the mscore set you suggested) does seem appropriate in that version.

[Anonymous]

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Look, I don’t appreciate discussions at all, even less so when they are so pointless like this one.

I’d say, we don’t need any multimedia codecs. I never listen the music or watch the videos and if they would come preinstalled, I would purge them all with greatest pleasure. We also don’t need any battery status. Laptop is plugged in DC all the time and the only purpose of the battery is to serve as a backup energy source during BIOS updates. The sole purpose of a laptop anyway is, to have a desktop PC which can be quickly closed and put under the table when the guests come. Nobody sane is using it any other way. Right? It must be — that’s exactly your way of thinking.

I very much dislike your “I” way of thinking (I wouldn’t favor …, I couldn’t find …, I strive to NEVER see a serif …) since you are totally unimportant — you are just simply one single entity living in your 2% world opposed to a couple of billion of entities living in an 80+ % world.

You can accept it or not but, over 80% of desktops / laptops are running Windows. Another 15 % are Macs (with preinstalled MS fonts). In the real world, people communicate and exchange the documents with each other. Almost any document you will ever get will use some MS font. Substituting them might or might not work since the slightest change in font rendering (size, spacing …) can completely ruin the layout. MS fonts are essentials and must have.

One of the very basic rules of web design is to use a mixture of Serif / Sans Serif — it has a very good reason why is it so and that mixture is essential and must have.

Font rendering is a thing of UI/UX and it is not questionable or the matter of (YOUR) taste — it’s the matter of usability and of the standards, which were made upon many hours of testing and many thousands of questionnaires (a sum of many individual tastes). Good font rendering is essential and must have.

Unless you’re blind, you’ll probably notice the difference on those 4 screenshots bellow.

The first one is the default antiX font rendering. The second one after you apply my changes to it. The third one is, how my Fedora looked like a couple of days ago, before those monkeys had to “improve it” one more time. The fourth one is, how the “improved” version of Fedora looks like.

I’ll not tell you why it’ll get replaced in the next couple of days. You can see it yourself … if you can.

Now, for me personally …

I lost the patience with fixing and repairing of “improvements”. Thing work or they don’t. When I buy a coffee machine, it should make a good coffee. Right?

You’ll also notice that all these screenshots are made on Chromium and not Firefox. Firefox is broken. No matter which OS.

Screenshot Nr. 5 will show you why Fedora makes place to Windows.

I hate it but, it works.

[Anonymous]

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Liberation was removed on purpose but, there’s a sample included in the screenshot.

EDIT: Ubuntu font download for those who are interested

Option 1: Get them from fonts.google.com and manually move to /usr/share/fonts

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Ubuntu

Option 2: Look up Ubuntu package search https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=ttf-ubuntu-font-family and it’ll bring you to:

https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/all/fonts-ubuntu/download

[Member olsztyn]

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Anonymous wrote:

You can accept it or not but, over 80% of desktops / laptops are running Windows. Another 15 % are Macs (with preinstalled MS fonts). In the real world, people communicate and exchange the documents with each other. Almost any document you will ever get will use some MS font. Substituting them might or might not work since the slightest change in font rendering (size, spacing …) can completely ruin the layout. MS fonts are essentials and must have.

The quoted part is just a small fragment of your post, and I have to say I agree with your entire post completely…
Improvement of AntiX fonts rendering or rather their quality is very important IMHO and this seems my next challenge to make AntiX completely usable. Now, to stress, I am an ACTUAL (humble) user, not a nerd user showing off intricate knowledge of CLI…
Therefore as I am new to AntiX (fantastic system in all aspects except fonts quality which effectively hampers universal usability), I was very interested in implementing your process of improving fonts, but could not quite follow what exactly I need to do.
So please do not jump to your assessment that I have not read your post – I did read but did not spend a week digging into technicalities. Is there a simple and clear way to do it that I am still missing from that reading. Understandably I do need to download your font zip file but then what?
Again I apologize for not being Linux nerd but just a humble user, hopeful to avoid flaming of someone…
Thanks and Regards.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Anonymous]

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… but could not quite follow what exactly I need to do.

Basicaly, you need only 2 Things: you need the font configuration file (== which tells how the fonts should render) and obviously, the font family itself.
Fonts should be saved under the “/usr/share/fonts” path for all users or, if there is only one user, in your own home directory.
Your “home” directory is under the path /home/YOURUSERNAME. Short way to write it: ~/
(The one with Documents, Downloads, Images, Videos … Folders)

Inside your home folder are different visible and invisible files and folders. Invisible always start with a . (dot) in front of their name.
So, if you want new fonts for your current user only (== YOURUSERNAME), you’ll put them into that hidden folder ~/.fonts

1. First you should go up, to my post, download the attached zip folder and unpack it.

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/fonts/#post-13306

2. Then you copy and paste “fonts.conf” into your home folder (beside Documents, Downloads …) and rename it so that it has a . (dot) at the beginning ==> .fonts.conf

3. Next, you open the Terminal and copy and paste the following text:

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer ttf-freefont fonts-noto && sudo fc-cache -f -v

sudo — you’re the boss
apt-get install — command which tells who should do what — apt should do an install
ttf-mscorefonts-installer — MS font installer and Microsoft fonts
ttf-freefont — Additional free fonts
fonts-noto — Google Noto font Family
&& sudo — AND you’re the boss again
fc-cache -f -v — rebuild the font cache (all not yet cached fonts get added and cached and no reboot or log out / log in is necessary)

4. If you wan’t, you can also add Ubuntu fonts and set them as a system font — it’s up to you.

I posted a link to them just above your post.

I am an ACTUAL (humble) user, not a nerd user showing off intricate knowledge of CLI…

I’m not a nerd and not very knowledgable in use of command line (cmd) but, the fact is that one should learn a couple of basic commands for his own good — sometimes it’s just much more convenient to write a command or two, then go to synaptic first, search for what you need, mark it for install, search for the next one and mark it for install, search for another one and mark it for install … you noticed what I wanted to tell you … 😉

(If you need some more fonts which are not included in the ttf-mscorefonts package, you’ll obviously have to copy them from another Windows and / or Mac.)

Good luck!

[Author]

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