Anti-aliasing in Linux

[UTmtnbiker]

Does anybody know the status of anti-aliasing features on Linux (RH 8.0 to be specific)? Just installed it last weekend. Love the performance and the features, but looks horrible when surfing...text just looks plain ugly. Very thin and jagged.

Looks like RH is working on it for their distro but no firm dates and Suse has the feature but it's disabled by default and it's not officially released. Is there another distro that supports anti-aliasing?

TIA

 

[Gantry]

I'm not sure if the RH 8.0 browser by default used Xft, but try installing this:

corefonts

 

[UTmtnbiker]

Thanks. I'll give it a try tonight.

 

[drag]

I don't know about you, but in my RH8 install all the text is pretty nice... everything is all realy nice and round to me.. It's at least as pleseant in RH as it was in XP, but it maybe its just because my monitor is very sh***y and just blurs everything....

as far at antialiaseness goes the next generation of x86free, 4.3.0 is going to support niceties like transparent/colored mice and freetype2

this is taken from Freetype's homepage.

By default, FreeType 2 supports the following font formats:

* TrueType fonts (and collections)
* Type 1 fonts
* CID-keyed Type 1 fonts
* CFF fonts
* OpenType fonts (both TrueType and CFF variants)
* SFNT-based bitmap fonts
* X11 PCF fonts
* Windows FNT fonts
* BDF fonts (including anti-aliased ones)
* PFR fonts
* Type42 fonts (limited support)


From a given glyph outline, FreeType 2 is capable of producing a high-quality monochrome bitmap, or anti-aliased pixmap, using 256 levels of "gray". This is much better than the 5 levels used by Windows 9x/98/NT/2000 or FreeType 1.

Right now you have freetype "1" supported by defualt, here is some screenshots

hope that helps

 

[cleverhandle]

Freetype 2 is already somewhat supported, it's just that not all applications are coded to use it. XFree 4.3 will streamline font handling so that apps don't really have to worry about it - it should "just work". As for RH, it really should look nice by default. Is it only the browser that doesn't look good, or the whole desktop? What browser? Have you played around with the font settings in the browser? Did you do a typical installation or a custom one?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: drag
as far at antialiaseness goes the next generation of x86free, 4.3.0 is going to support niceties like transparent/colored mice and freetype2

Excuse me, but XF4.3.0 is out already, and I'm using a freshly compiled version of it on the Debian Linux 3.0 box sitting next to me. The default cursors are the plain black ones, but I suggest you look around on google (there's some file buried many levels under /usr/X11R6/lib/ that you need to change one line in, so it says Inherits=whiteglass instead of Inherits=CORE) to see how to enable the new cursors. There are two themes by default (whiteglass and redglass); I prefer whiteglass over redglass.

Concerning anti-aliased text, I'm suprised more distros don't have it yet. IIRC, it's been in XFree86 since 4.1 (which has been out a long time). Only thing I can think of: perhaps you're using GNOME instead of KDE. GNOME hasn't had anti-aliased text supported properly until rather recently, while KDE has had this feature for quite some time.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: jliechty
Only thing I can think of: perhaps you're using GNOME instead of KDE. GNOME hasn't had anti-aliased text supported properly until rather recently, while KDE has had this feature for quite some time.

True, but RH 8 uses GNOME/GTK 2, which supports anti-aliasing just fine. I'm not sure offhand, though, if RH's Mozilla is built on GTK 1 or 2.

I have a feeling that AA is not the issue here - it really doesn't make that huge of a difference on most screens. Sounds more like a missing package or a configuration issue.

 

[UTmtnbiker]

Thanks for all the info guys.

I'm using Mozilla 1.3 on a 17" Samsung 171v LCD. I've played with the text settings and just can't seem to get it to look as nice as my Mozilla setup on XP. Maybe it's the XP ClearType setting for LCDs that's doing it.

Correct on the GNOME. I'm using that instead of KDE.

 

[drag]

Excuse me, But did I say that 4.3.0 WASN'T out? geez, Is RH8 using it? NO, But I am sure that it WILL be...

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: drag
Excuse me, But did I say that 4.3.0 WASN'T out? geez, Is RH8 using it? NO, But I am sure that it WILL be...

Sheesh, you just implied (intentionally or not) that it wasn't out yet. I was trying to clarify something if somebody else misunderstood (like me). No need to take it personal and get all pissed off about it. 🙂

 

[drag]

hehe no prob.