Comments on: Enable Smooth fonts on Ubuntu Linux

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:13:19 +0000

Just in case anyone reads this far… AFAIK:

There are no patents on subpixel antialiasing (i.e. using the RGB pattern to get higher horizontal resolution), and this can easily be enabled.

The problem is when you want to use ‘hinting’ which tries to align the letters to the pixels so they look sharper. Fonts contain hinting programs that say how to do this, but it breaks some annoying patent to use it so instead freetype uses an auto-hinter. I.e. it guesses. This doesn’t work so well and leads to things like letters touching each other, and weird bold letters that shouldn’t be.

Freetype *can* use the hinting programs (ignoring the patent) but it is disabled in ubuntu. This is pretty annoying, especially for people who don’t live in the US.

By: James

James — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:09:46 +0000

Hi dude,
Thank you. I tried your tip and it worked like a charm. Now my fonts look really very good.

By: John

John — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:57:39 +0000

Subpixel hinting looks horrible on CRT. That is why it is not turned on by default. It is only good for LCD. On a CRT you should use antialiasing without subpixel hinting, otherwise the edge of the fonts will be colored.

By: RobK

RobK — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:56:51 +0000

A great resource is the “Comprehensive Ubuntu Font Configuration Guide: Gutsy 7.10 edition”. The guide is also relevant to Hardy Heron.

See http://www.ubuntutips.net/node/35

By: LS

LS — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:54:04 +0000

My fonts are already excellent in Ubuntu 8.04 using slight hinting from settings. No reason for anything better. Way better than Windows too.

By: RobK

RobK — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:55:21 +0000

Brent at al — Yes, Apple does have a patent relating to the use of a Byte Code Interpreter for TrueType Fonts. Most TrueType Fonts contain additional information in the form of byte code that a good Byte Code Interpreter can use to better render fonts at small sizes. Rendering Fonts using the Byte Code Interpreter is often also called “native hinting”.

And yes, most distros do disable the byte code interpreter found in freetype. BUT NOT UBUNTU IN HARDY HERON. For some reason, Ubuntu intentionally activates the patented Byte Code Interpreter. You can easily see this yourself. Run the following command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
apt-get source libfreetype6

You can now review the source and patches. One of the patch activates the byte code interpreter. If you are worried about Patent Infringement, you must recompile the libfreetype6 package with the patch removed.

To get around patents, it is my understanding that the freetype group developed the “auto hinter”. You can use EITHER the patented byte code interpreter or the autohinter but not both. To use autohinting, use the hint in this post, or just run the following command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

then choose “autohinter”, then choose “always”, then choose “no”

Some fonts may look better using the patented byte code interpreter, Other fonts look better using the autohinter.

After reading other posts on the net, I get the impression that David Turner, one of the main freetype developers, prefers the use of the autohinter over the patented bytecode interpreter. But I suspect it boils down to personal preference. see http://www.osnews.com/story/18.....-Freetype/

By: Vole

Vole — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:09:04 +0000

The closing quote in is a right-double-quote not a standard quotation mark.

Anyone copying-and-pasting will need to fix that otherwise the xml will not be valid and this won’t work (should be ).

By: Vadim P.

Vadim P. — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:17:46 +0000

System – Preferences – Appearance, Fonts, and enable smoothing there… no need to tinker with the terminal.

By: Troodon

Troodon — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:57:38 +0000

[continued] On the other hand, the SuSE fonts don’t seem to suffer from this limitation. The SuSE fonts look great in SuSE 9 w/o hinting enabled. Go figure.

By: Troodon

Troodon — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:56:13 +0000

AFAIK, freetype has it’s own hinting method that is supposed to replace the Apple hinting algorithm. They say the freetype algorithm is getting better all the time but upon enabling the Apple hinting method in CentOS (by editing a confi file and rebuilding the frretype package) I noticed a huge difference, i.e, fonts looked much better with hinting turned on.