Stretch -> Buster = Shot Fonts
After upgrading from stretch to buster, I was left with some fuzzy fonts
on the built in KDE terminal (Konsole). I documented the painful 12 hour
discovery process here: http://www.net153.net/blog/20190318-shot-fonts.html
This is the new engine:
http://www.net153.net/pics/shot-fonts/Screenshot_20190318_170153_org.png
And the old:
http://www.net153.net/pics/shot-fonts/Screenshot_20190318_170259_mod.png
Yes I am aware of the new engine in libfreetype:
https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/subpixel-hinting.html
as well as a previous bug:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=866685
But I find it odd that the "new and improved" engine has in no case any
examples of improved text and the only fix is to simply force the old
engine into use.
I figured I had to be missing something, hence spending nearly two full
days on the matter. But I can find no way to make fonts using the "new"
engine to look any better. Even stranger, if I force the use of the
freetype 'autohinter' instead of using the default 'native' hinter
(which all docs state not to do btw) then mostly everything improves.
I've got to be missing something here but I'm out of ideas. The only
thing I haven't really messed with is if there is some kind of DPI
mismatch in my system but not sure how to check that (and too tired to
mess with it now). Any other ideas? I'm actually quite happy with my
fonts now using the 'autohinter' and turning on subpixel hinting. But
certainly the freetype author didn't just break fonts for the entire
world and the only thing we say is "just use the old engine"???
Regards,
Reply to: