Text is all Fuzzy in Linux, even after installing those Microsoft Fonts

[AtlantaBob]

So I want to use Linux. I'm using Red Hat Enterprise Workstation on a computer that has an ATI 9200 SE card in it, and a 15" Viewsonic VA520 flatpanel.

The only problem is that the text is a little... fuzzy. No, it probably wouldn't matter to some people, but I'm writing a dissertation here, and I stare at it enough so that it's an issue. It's particularly bad when moving back from a Windows XP Dell laptop.

I know that ATI drivers aren't great/don't exist/something like that for Linux, and I know that installing the Microsoft Fonts are supposed to help. I've even tried turning on the subpixel rendering (like ClearType) in the Fonts box, but nothing's helped. Any suggestions on what to try next?

Thanks!

 

[drag]

Try this:

run gnome-font-properties.
select 'best shapes'.

Now go into the 'details' section and change the DPI to 96 to match what Windows uses.

If that doesn't help then play around with the settings until you find something you like.

 

[AtlantaBob]

Thanks Drag, that helped a little, but it's still a little mushy--even after playing with a couple of different settings--at least, it's mushy until it gets to be so large as to be impractical.

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
Thanks Drag, that helped a little, but it's still a little mushy--even after playing with a couple of different settings--at least, it's mushy until it gets to be so large as to be impractical.

:camera:?

 

[AtlantaBob]

Be happy to, unfortunately, the Linux machine isn't networked, and I left some thumb drives at work. I'll post 'em tomorrow.

 

[DaiShan]

Are you running your display at native resolution? LCD's don't scale well, and if you're Xorg isn't configured properly you may be running at a suboptimal resolution.

 

[drag]

Ok... Maybe try going the other direction.

Now with DPI that's dot per inch, right?

So 96 is what Windows uses by default. This is a good compromise and about average when you were running 800x600 resolution 13 or 15 monitors back when Win95 came out. This was pretty much set in stone until Vista.

Linux defaults, apparently, to either 81 or 75 DPI. (not sure how accurate that is).

Mac OS used to default to 72.


But maybe you can match it to your display. I am running CentOS here and this helped tremendously.

There are a couple ways to find the real DPI for your monitor.

One way is to show what X thinks it is.
You can find this by going:
xdpyinfo |grep resolution

So I did that and it turns out it's guessed correctly and set it at 63 dpi, which is very low resolution. So I matched that setting with my gnome-font-properties and it made the fonts look tiny.

So then I raised the font sizes up to about 13 points and that made everything look much much cleaner.

Now with my display the pixel resolutions of what is being used to render the fonts actually now match the pixels being used in my display.

If X does it incorrectly you can try the Gimp monitor calibrating utility that is found in it's preferences menus. That way you can measure lines and get correct DPI settings that way (although the actually settings only affect gimp so you'll have to change it elsewere.)

So maybe try that.



You can some people discussing issues at: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=257705


One of the major problems that you face with Linux is software patents. Apple has several software patents related to the bytecode interpreter needed to proccess hinting on true type fonts correctly.

Freetype is the low level font rendering stuff used. It supports all of this stuff, of course, but the bytecode interpretor is disabled by default so that distributions don't have to worry about patent violations.

There are two ways to work around this.. One is to enable autohinting, which is a way Freetype people have found to work around the patents. The other is to recompile Freetype and enable the bytecode interpretor.

If you look around you may be able to find rpms that have have that feature enabled. But I haven't found any.

I am using CentOS 4 right now, which is a clone of Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 built from Redhat-provided source code. I'll see if messing around with autohinting helps any.

 

[aidanjm]

switch to Tahoma (the Windows system font in XP) and turn off subpixel smoothing. it will give you the crisp, pixelated (non-mushy) look that you get in Windows XP with cleartype turned off. Tahoma was designed to be displayed in this way, and it is very legible on the screen. you will probably have to copy the Tahoma font from your windows installation across to the linux installation, as Tahoma isn't included in the M$ fonts packages for linux that are available.

also, a DVI monitor connection will make things look more crisp (than a VGA connection).

edit: it is definitely worth installing the proprietary ATI graphics drivers as well (if they aren't already installed - I don't know, I don't use red hat), it probably won't improve font legibility but it should speed up display.

 

[DasFox]

Honestly if you can afford, toss out the ATI, or turn it off in the motherboard if it's onboard, and get a cheap Nvidia card, like a FX5200, you can get those for like $25-$35 and you'll be a happy camper.

ATI support for that card probably isn't going to get any better...

ALOHA

 

[drag]

The 9200 ATI card is actually pretty nice.

It's very well supported by DRI drivers and Radeon 2D driver. So I'd keep it.

The ATI propriatory driver support for it is non-existant. They've dropped support for R200 series cards a while ago.

As far as Linux card recommended then Onboard Intel GMA 950 (945g chipset) (and then G965, but drivers are a bit immature) is preferable to all else, unless you have the requirement for high performance 3D then your only real choice is Nvidia.

I tried the autohinting and that seems ok. I don't know if it's doing anything or not, but it seems harmless enough. Definately didn't make it any worse.

To enable it, at least in CentOS/Redhat, you can go into /etc/fonts/local.conf and change it.

Of course uncomment the subpixel rendering stuff (the <!--- and ---> make it comments) to try that out for LCD displays.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[drag]

My current monitor sucks. I can't realy compare it. (It's a ancient Dell from P2 system)

What I'd like you to try is this, just as a experiment:

Try this command in the terminal
~$ xdpyinfo |grep resolution

Go into gnome-font-properties detail settings and make the DPI match whatever that says.

Then if the fonts are too small make it larger in the gnome-font-properties.

Tell me how that compares then.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[drag]

You have to go into Firefox and adjust the font sizes manually.

The 'standard' for web browsers is 96DPI. Because, obviously, that is what Microsoft uses for Windows. There is a bit of wackiness with Mac OS browsers because of this.. Firefox and other browsers default to 96DPI irregardless, while I think Safari defaults to 72DPI so that stuff that looks fine on Firefox may be wonky on Safari and the other way around.

The thing that is happenning is that it's making the dots on the screen match up with the pixels in your monitor. So that way a inch on the screen matches a inch in real life. And that 12 point font realy is 12 points, according to printing standards.

Or something like that. I don't know how well it works out actually.

Now I am on my Ibook. The real DPI of the LCD display is 100 DPI. It's a 12inch laptop with 1024x768 display.

Now before I was on a very low resolution display, with the cheap ass old work pc, with only 63 or so DPI. Fonts that were to small for that monitor now are much easier to read.

So now I am thinking that if you have a laptop with a small, but very high resolution display then that means you should match the high resolution DPI of your display for proper use.

However if your display is low resolution then it may be better to stick with 96 DPI since that is the standard for web and how applications view things so you don't end up having to upsize the font size to make it more readable.

With firefox on the 63 DPI display I had to increase the font size to 14 points and then set the minimal font size to 12, which normally is very huge at 96dpi settings.

Interesting.

Also with Vista Microsoft has added the ability to change the DPI to match your display. It would be interesting to see if you can futher improve the font quality on the Windows side that way by doing the same thing.

 

[AtlantaBob]

Thanks all, particularly drag:

Indeed, the monitor is running at its native resolution (1024x768).

xdpyinfo - Running that gave me a resolution of 86 x 84 dpi (I didn't think I could get non-equal numbers there) But I've set that with the fonts, and it certainly looks a little better--including bumping up the size.

I've gone ahead and installed the Tahoma font -- as well as others, and it seems to be a pretty good version for the screen.

Unfortunately, a DVI connection is right out at the moment... I have one at work -- and a lovely gigantic Dell Monitor... but, while I'm still in grad school, I'll just have to get by with this one.

With regard to the ATI card--again, it's a cost thing at the moment. I didn't realize that ATI even offered drivers for linux -- I guess I got confused about not offering them at all, or just not offering open source ones. Anyway, I'm downloading those as we speak.

Also, drag, I'll try uncommenting those lines to see if autohinting works.

Again, thanks all!

 

[AtlantaBob]

Wow! Installing the ATI drivers really did the trick. Text is much better looking now.... Thanks again, all!

 

[fyleow]

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