- This topic has 27 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Nov 22-10:52 am by olsztyn.
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olsztyn
Thank you missTell for this detailed procedure. Greatly appreciated… I will follow it after work…
So to understand what to expect after installing these better fonts:
– Fonts quality will improve in browsers and editors
– Fonts quality will improve in desktop (Currently using Space Fluxbox – font quality is acceptable in menus but not on desktop)
– Fonts quality will improve in other WMs (such as IceWM if I were to use such, or XFCE if I were to use one)In anticipation of vast progress in result of quality fonts installation thanks to your guidance I have a basic question to AntiX developers then:
Why such important aspect of usability of such OS has not been foreseen or cared about in the first place? And I do not mean just AntiX but also MX… Perhaps MX carried forward font ugliness from IceWM or XFCE feature? My this question is out of curiosity only, considering some Linux distros do care to have good quality fonts and other distros do not…
Thanks again for your help…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameterssudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer ttf-freefont fonts-noto && sudo fc-cache -f -v
Thanks again for your help. Greatly appreciated.
After executing the above command I am getting the following messages:Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package ttf-mscorefonts-installer is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another sourceE: Package ‘ttf-mscorefonts-installer’ has no installation candidate
E: Unable to locate package ttf-freefont
E: Unable to locate package fonts-notoAm I missing something in the system so it does not go through?
Regards…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersThanks again missTell…
Just want to add that in spite of the above error I am getting I did restart the session and voila! if I am not imagining things fonts changed to better now on the desktop (such as in Conky, icons)… Fonts also changed on Space Fluxbox menus.
Looks like something worked after all… Thanks much!
This test I performed on laptop with 1440×900 resolution.
I will be doing more testing time permitting but a quick question:
Where do I set which fonts to use? I think the Control Center allows just to change font size…
Regards.Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parametersif I am not imagining things fonts changed to better now on the desktop (such as in Conky, icons)… Fonts also changed on Space Fluxbox menus.
Unless my imagination (in anticipation of progress) plays visual tricks on me, I do see font quality improvement not only in desktop but also browser… Please tell me it is all imagination…
I have tested so far on two laptops: One is 1440×900 and the other old and modest 1024×768. I am not rushing to test on my 1920×1200 laptops as I think it will be hard to determine difference with such resolution…
missTell – you are life saver…
Now, most Linux community may not attach any significance to font quality: As long as you can figure out what character it is, it is fine…
However for me and some others font quality makes a big aesthetic difference…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersHi missTell and AntiX team…
Not to take more your precious time I just would like to know if the error messages I posted mean that fonts installation:
– went through and these messages are just some informational messages
– went though partially and the results I see are real but not all fonts got installed
– font installation did not go through at all and the font change results I see are due to some side effects from such installationThe reason I am digging further into this is that I like to understand where I stand. For example I played with installation of XFCE minimal (just to test, not to use, as so far I do not seem to have discovered any advantage of XFCE over Space Fluxbox in spite of much higher RAM use). My impression was that it did impact fonts as well, so I am not sure what is going on…
Regards…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersAnonymous
Unless my imagination (in anticipation of progress) plays visual tricks on me, I do see font quality improvement not only in desktop but also browser…
It’s not your imagination. 🙂
Yes, the system fonts and the browser fonts get hugely improved rendering but, it allways depends which fonts you have installed, which browser …
Can’t tell you exactly why did you get errors … if they were errors after all. I just did an install to check it a couple of minutes ago but, installation finished fine.
Some sources changed perhaps or you didn’t do “apt-get update” before you started … Hard to say without the output of cmd.This is (shortened) what I get uppon install:
These fonts were provided by Microsoft “in the interest of cross-
platform compatibility”. This is no longer the case, but they are
still available from third parties.You are free to download these fonts and use them for your own use,
but you may not redistribute them in modified form, including changes
to the file name or packaging format.All done, no errors.
arialb32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: arialb32.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting AriBlk.TTFAll done, no errors.
arial32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: arial32.exe
extracting FONTINST.EXE
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Ariali.TTF
extracting Arialbd.TTF
extracting Arialbi.TTF
extracting Arial.TTFAll done, no errors.
comic32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: comic32.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Comicbd.TTF
extracting Comic.TTF
extracting fontinst.exeAll done, no errors.
courie32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: courie32.exe
extracting cour.ttf
extracting courbd.ttf
extracting courbi.ttf
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting couri.ttf
extracting fontinst.exeAll done, no errors.
georgi32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: georgi32.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Georgiaz.TTF
extracting Georgiab.TTF
extracting Georgiai.TTF
extracting Georgia.TTF
extracting fontinst.exeAll done, no errors.
impact32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: impact32.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting Impact.TTF
extracting fontinst.infAll done, no errors.
times32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: times32.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Times.TTF
extracting Timesbd.TTF
extracting Timesbi.TTF
extracting Timesi.TTF
extracting FONTINST.EXEAll done, no errors.
trebuc32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: trebuc32.exe
extracting FONTINST.EXE
extracting trebuc.ttf
extracting Trebucbd.ttf
extracting trebucbi.ttf
extracting trebucit.ttf
extracting fontinst.infAll done, no errors.
verdan32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: verdan32.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Verdanab.TTF
extracting Verdanai.TTF
extracting Verdanaz.TTF
extracting Verdana.TTFAll done, no errors.
webdin32.exe: OK
Extracting cabinet: webdin32.exe
extracting fontinst.exe
extracting Webdings.TTF
extracting fontinst.inf
extracting Licen.TXTAll done, no errors.
fonts-freefont-ttf (20120503-6) wird eingerichtet …
Trigger für fontconfig (2.11.0-6.7+b1) werden verarbeitet …
fonts-noto (20161116-1) wird eingerichtet …
ttf-freefont (20120503-6) wird eingerichtet …The listed fonts got installed.
Here some screenshots before / after on my machine.
Danke.
From your snapshots it appears my fonts changed/improved in the same way, although snapshots usually are not exact representation of the screen. That is why I am qualifying as ‘appears to me’…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters… although snapshots usually are not exact representation of the screen.
But pretty close since I‘m not resizing them, so the loss depends only on .png and Scrot/IM. You‘ll get pretty close to what I actually get on my screen.
You can compare my Screenshots very well if you right click / open them in new tab. I usually write the image size too but, even without it‘s easy to get proper size for comparison. If the new opened image is smaller then your screen, it will open 1:1. If your screen is smaller, you‘ll get enlarging lens … left click and the image is 1:1, even on smaller screens. 😉
Two images in two tabs are very convenient for that purpose, better then any image viewer.
Yes. I agree with this assessment. Particularly that I see a significant improvement of font rendering quality on my two laptops 1440×900 and 1024×768 using multiple USB sticks with with original fonts and after this font installation.
Tomorrow I will try to test using laptops (two different sizes of screen) 1366×768 and 1920×1200, although in the latter case I do not expect too much visible difference due to high resolution.
Looks like thanks to your help we can resolve this last element of deficiency and promote AntiX to the status of perfect!
Thanks and Regards.Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parametersfrom recent reading, I’ve learned that
~/.fonts.conf is or will be deprecated (depends on OS version)
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf is the futureproof path.Also, per https://www.freedesktop.org/software/fontconfig/fontconfig-user.html
here’s the spec’ced search path order when the system looks for a fonts configuration file:
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf
/etc/fonts/fonts.dtd
/etc/fonts/conf.d
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fontconfig/conf.d
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fontconfig/fonts.conf
~/.fonts.conf.d
~/.fonts.confThe packages “fontconfig” and “fontconfig-config” are pre-installed in antiX full edition. (I didn’t research whether they’re also present in net//core//base editions.) Anklebone connected to the shinbone… during start of desktop session, in the absence of a per-user font configuration file, rules declared within /etc/fonts/conf.d/* files (provided by, installed by “fontconfig-config”) govern how fonts will be rendered and substituted and whatnot.
Why [..] has not been foreseen or cared about in the first place?
A search the Old Forum archive will probably confirm that the antiX15 and/or antix16 betatesting discussions included attention to “better default font configuration”. IIRC, an improved fontconfig XML declaration (one which was nearly identical to what missTell has recently proposed) was presented, and agreed. That intended change apparently “fell through the cracks”, wound up being omitted from the build.
dpkg-query -S /etc/skel/.config/fancy-prompts-bash.conf
desktop-defaults-base-antix: /etc/skel/.config/fancy-prompts-bash.conf“desktop-session-antix” https://gitlab.com/antiX-Linux/desktop-session-antix/tree/master/skel
seems to be the appropriate package for providing a custom /etc/skel/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
but we should continue to research whether a custom /etc/skel/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/ (and select children) would also be beneficial.some Linux distros do care to have good quality fonts and other distros do not
Prior to the antiX17 release, anticapitalista enforced a steadfast design goal: the antiX “full” release must fit on a single CD. Even under that constraint, antiX still managed to ship a selection of fonts providing broad multilingual coverage. IIRC, the increasing size of (cough, LibreOffice) other packages across versions wound up displacing most of the CJK font packages in the antiX17 release.
I do not mean just AntiX but also MX
From where I sit, seems like MX has already “embraced” esthetics.
Over in the MX forum, I’ve chimed in on the subject of gtk themes and, during MX 17 betatesting I called attention to blurred font displayed in WhiskerMenu.
MX is a separate experience. Here in antiX forum I won’t criticize their esthetic choices, except to mention:
The current MX release includes a default ICONSET package which “weighs” several hundred megabytes (yikes!)antiX15 and/or antix16 betatesting discussions included attention to “better default font configuration”. IIRC, an improved fontconfig XML declaration (one which was nearly identical to what missTell has recently proposed) was presented, and agreed. That intended change apparently “fell through the cracks”, wound up being omitted from the build.
Thank you. This entire post is some great insight on what led to font quality falling though the cracks… I do not believe Mr. Anticapitalista is reading such periferal to the OS core topics as ‘Fonts’ but if someone close could convey this message this would be for significant benefit of AntiX. This would be for the benefit of all users in the first place, if such current poor quality fonts could be replaced by good quality ones. As it is now I owe this to missTell that I no longer need to put up with such deficiency, typing this now in clear, pleasant font…
On compromising OS quality in order to fit CD size: I think time has come to move beyond CD size. Even my oldest laptop Thinkpad T23 (year 2000), which came back to live with AntiX/Palemoon as AntiX showcase has DVD reader and most everyone nowadays is using USB sticks instead anyway…
Thanks again and Regards.Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parametersor you didn’t do “apt-get update” before you started
I realized I missed to report back that my errors indeed resulted from the above.
After executing the above, fonts installed clean without errors.
Install base of AntiX (remastered) now includes good (readable) fonts you provided, which makes significant difference…
Thanks again!Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters
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