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Why do web sites still look bad in Linux?

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imported_vdorta

Member
In Windows, Firefox has been a surprising discovery for me and I now use it all the time. What surprises me even more is that while in Windows web sites via Firefox look just as nice as they do through Internet Explorer, they don't look as good in Linux, whether it's Firefox or Konqueror (in SimplyMepis Konqueror renders websites a bit better than Firefox). I am not talking about the fact that some sites are purposefully formatted for IE; it's more a problem of general appearance and font rendering and not even full anti-aliasing fixes the appearance of most everything via Linux. Better than a few years ago, but still not as polished as it should be.
 
I've got firefox side by side windows and linux. I dont know what your talking about. You got some screenshots. In fact I think my linux box looks more readable.
 
I'll see if I can get screenshots (I have to switch hard drives on my laptop). I thought it was a Mozilla problem until I tried Firefox in Windows. I use Clear Type.
 
Originally posted by: vdorta
I'll see if I can get screenshots (I have to switch hard drives on my laptop). I thought it was a Mozilla problem until I tried Firefox in Windows. I use Clear Type.
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Maybe this link will help you out. You don't necessarily have to be using Gentoo to follow the guide, as the config files should be the same.
 
Any chance your browser is a GTK1 build? GTK2 builds look very nice. The unix one here is GTK1. GTK2 looks much better than windows (and I'd hope all distros are shipping GTK2 builds).
 
it's possible you're used to WinXP cleartype being on where as X11 doesn't have this option (or something similar), I don't believe.
 
X11 has anti-aliasing (which is what clear type is) and sub pixel hinting (also part of clear type) So if you are using xorg you should have everything you need to make it look very very perty (providing its qt or gtk2)
 
I use Clear Type.
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Clear Type is ass, it just makes fonts look blurry even on my laptop's LCD. Now, I much prefer the look and feel of Xorg font anti-aliasing and GTK2 over Windows.
 
Originally posted by: CTho9305
Any chance your browser is a GTK1 build? ... The unix one here is GTK1.
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Ugly! That's what I was thinking of when I said that Linux looked really bad several years ago. But I have also tried many of the most recent distros (Ubuntu and Kubuntu 5.04, SimplyMepis 3.3.1.1, PCLinux 9.1, Ark 2005.2, Yoper 2.2, Kanotix 2005.3, etc., some with XF86, some with Xorg, all with GTK2). All of them are better than that ugly screenshot and they improve with anti-aliasing and sub-pixel hinting, but they are still not quite as good as Firefox or IE in Windows with ClearType.
 
Sounds like personal preference to me rather then an issue. Some people just like the way MS fonts look compared to linux fonts. Personally I like the linux fonts. Are you sure you have subpixel rendering and anti-aliasing turned on in linux? That could make it look rather ugly as well if they are not turned on.
 
It also could be that the screen fonts usually used on webpages (Verdana and Georgia) are not packaged with Linux distros..
 
It also could be that the screen fonts usually used on webpages (Verdana and Georgia) are not packaged with Linux distros..
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FF should fall back to a decent font if they're not available, even if it doesn't look exactly the same it shouldn't look bad. And most sites specify font families like "sans" or "sans-serif" anyway.
 
I always thought webpages looked better on linux. There was just something about it that seemed a little smoother and sharper.
 
I remember having that problem a year or two ago with SuSE. It did have to do with fonts, and I couldn't find any fonts on my system that looked good in Firefox. Konqueror looked all right, but the fonts it used didn't appear in the list of available fonts for Firefox.
I think I eventually got around the problem by updating my distro, but I've solved other font problems by installing the MS Core fonts. I'd recommend trying that.
 
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