Linux Desktop Distros with Quality Fonts?

occamboy writes "I'm trying to make a case for switching to Linux desktops, and would like to demonstrate how advantageous Linux is. While the advantages of Linux are more obvious for us techies, I'm finding that many non-technical types are immediately negatively biased by the look of Linux desktops. The problem boils down to screen fonts. It seems that, in the distributions that I've demonstrated, the screen fonts are either all aliased, or are aliased in some places and antialiased in others, which I've been told resembles a ransom note with letters cut from different magazines. I can understand where these critics are coming from; after all, they are staring at fonts on a monitor all day long. Are there any distributions that I can demonstrate which provide smooth and consistent screen fonts without requiring a lot of messing around?"

Re:OT- Simple guide to Linux?

[nathanh]

I'm looking for something that would give me a very general understanding of what's involved in setting up and maintaining a Linux system (I'm thinking Mandrake at the moment). Basically, I want just enough information to decide whether it's worth the bother to give it a try.

Ask yourself two questions:

• What do I use my computer for?
• What benefits do I expect from Linux?

If you're happy with your current software then don't bother. If you're unhappy with your current software then tell us what you dislike and we can tell you if Linux is better or worse.

Also bear in mind that Linux was weak areas (eg, games, off-the-shelf software). If any of those weak areas are relevant to you then don't bother.

If you're simply curious then try one of the many Live CDs (eg, Suse, Knoppix). Minimal fuss and you get a roughly accurate Linux experience.

Re:I don't think so.

[Enrico Pulatzo]

It's because /. is a community site filled with differing opinions. Why people insist on posting in such a thread a "why care" response to a question is a mystery to me.

ms fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

You could try setting up ms truetype fonts on your linux distros, just be sure to enable the bytecode interpreter(patent encumbered [sourceforge.net]) in freetype library.
By default(no bytecode) freetype does a very bad job at rendering truetype fonts IMHO.

anonymous

Re:i dont mean to brag but...

[mapinguari]

And you consider that to be good font rendering?

You even commented on some of the problems.

In Luxi Sans, the w, c, and d all have some unevenness; the e's crossbar is too high.
Trebuchet has dropouts in its e's, and its w is uneven.
Times isn't antialiased at all. Verdana is too thin for its size (and the V is about to fall apart).
The g in Impact is blocky and has some strange lumps.
Georgia almost looks aliased.

Here's a screenshot comparison [mac.com] between your original and the same fonts rendered by MacOS X. (I have most, but not all of the fonts). IMHO, the righthand (MacOS) side looks superior - more like actual typeset text. So what's up? Does freetype suck that badly? Are you using the non-hinted version of freetype? Is this a screen gamma difference? I used Linux/X11/freetype2 daily for a couple of years, and I never got the fonts to look the way I wanted them to. It's almost like the contrast setting is wrong, not to mention the subpixel precision of the glyph control points is out of whack (what's with the V in Verdana, anyway?).

Of course, the flipside is to say that the freetype-rendered text looks crisper, less blurry - especially Impact. I appreciate that distinction - but for me, the consistency of shape and the evenness of the glyph weighting is more important than the apparent focus.

Cyrillic fonts

[dimss]

The _only_ way to get cyrillic letters right is to use MS TrueType fonts. There are very few free fonts but they are either low quality or incomplete (no serbian glyphs in particular). I have fonts.tgz which I untar on every Linux/*BSD computer that I use.

Luxi font family

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite fond of Luxi fonts, among which there is the Luxi Mono, which I perceive as the best-looking monospace font available. I would have posted screenshots if I had a good enough server ;-)

Re:Java fonts

[fruity_pebbles]

Welcome to Swing, which insists on using its own fonts and font rendering engine.