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Re: terminal true type fonts



cga2000:
> On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 05:35:53PM EDT, Jochen Schulz wrote:
> > 
> > Agreed. Although one should note that the MS fonts look horrible when
> > used with fontconfig's anti-aliasing and hinting.  This would probably
> > look a lot better on Windows. 
> 
> I use verdana both in gnu/linux and win98 and I find that the result is
> much better in the former than the latter. (!)

That's for sure. Win98 does no anti-aliasing or hinting at all (at least
in the UI).  Everything looks like a bitmap font. This is even true for
WinXP if you don't have ClearType enabled.

I have made some more screenshots:
http://wasteland.homelinux.net/~jrschulz/gfx/fonts/

(Font sizes are not the same on Windows as on Linux since my Windows box
 has a larger display with higher resolution. And the pictures will
 probably look different on your display than on mine, but well.)

In my opinion, Bitstream on Linux beats them all. Only Tahoma on Windows
(not shown) comes close for small font sizes. Verdana on Linux is quite
ok, too. But it is too wide (and screen space is precious on my
notebook) and it looks like there were "holes" in some lines (see the
"x" character in verdana-linux).

> Could be that "X" lets you do more in the way of tweaking than Windows
> does (?)

Yes, but I guess that's also due to some patents that have to be worked
around. And of course different people prefer different styles. Some
people don't like the "blurred" looks at all and prefer bitmap style
fonts.

I myself have hesitated a long time to switch over to a terminal
emulator which can use TrueType fonts. But for some time now, the
Bitstream Monospace font looks really beautiful when you have configured
X's DPI settings correctlyand found the right answers to
'dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config'. You can see a small portion of it
in the bistream-linux screenshot, only at a different size which doesn't
like so condensed.

> But then I suppose it mostly depends on what you are looking for.. The
> way I have set up my fonts, Verdana 8 pts on my laptop with a display
> capable of roughly 116 dpi and no AA looks good to me.  Larger fonts of
> course do not look so good.

Yup, small fonts with AA tend to look less crisp. I am using Bitstream
Sans at 8pt on a 14" 1024x768 flat panel and it works quite well. But I
have noticed some people like even smaller fonts, so it stays a matter
of taste.

> What I don't like about Bitstream Vera is that some glyphs look like
> someone messed up before the ink had time to dry.

Does this also apply to
<http://debris/~jrschulz/gfx/fonts/bitstream-linux.png>?

J.
-- 
Thy lyrics in pop songs seem to describe my life uncannily accurately.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
                 <http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>

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