Fonts after upgrade

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
clod81

Fonts after upgrade

Post by clod81 »

Hi,
I'm using Mate under linux mint debian.
Yesterday I did a system upgrade, after I reboot all the mate fonts have changed and I can't understand how to restore the previous status.
I don't know what fonts I had previously, but I tried some of them, and all of them do not look alright.

What is supposed to be the default mint x theme font family?

Thanks
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Monsta
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Posts: 3071
Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2011 3:46 am

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by Monsta »

This probably has something to do with the fact that LMDE now uses the upstream libcairo2/fontconfig packages instead of the patched Ubuntu ones. IMO fonts in Debian now look better than they were a few years ago, but still not as smooth as in Ubuntu.
mcg00sh

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by mcg00sh »

I too just upgraded and am seeing some strange font issues. Seems like they are ok after some tweaking in Mate but when I try to open up network connections..etc the font is completely white. Not sure what to make of that.
zerozero

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by zerozero »

mcg00sh,
i think that is a different issue, give us please the output of

Code: Select all

apt policy mint-x-theme mint-themes
mcg00sh

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by mcg00sh »

Code: Select all

$ apt policy mint-x-theme mint-themes
mint-x-theme:
  Installed: 1.0.7
  Candidate: 1.0.7
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.7 0
        700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
mint-themes:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.0.8
  Version table:
     1.0.8 0
        700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main amd64 Packages
killer de bug

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by killer de bug »

I have exactly the opposite ;)
You should remove the one who is installed and install the one who is not ;)
zerozero

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by zerozero »

yep, as killer is saying :lol:
mint-themes is now deprecating mint-x-themes (this last one is not gtk3.4 compatible and you can find a new compatible mint-x theme inside mint-themes)
mcg00sh

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by mcg00sh »

Ah yes. Brilliant thanks gents.
clod81

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by clod81 »

I have the following:

Code: Select all

mint-themes:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.0.8
  Version table:
     1.0.8 0
        700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main i386 Packages
mint-x-theme:
  Installed: 1.0.7
  Candidate: 1.0.7
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.7 0
        700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
zerozero

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by zerozero »

please install mint-themes

Code: Select all

apt install mint-themes
clod81

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by clod81 »

zerozero wrote:please install mint-themes

Code: Select all

apt install mint-themes
thx

is monospace the default font?
zerozero

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by zerozero »

Image
this is the vanilla fonts (mate) but tweaked in the font rendering details.
clod81

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by clod81 »

zerozero wrote:Image
this is the vanilla fonts (mate) but tweaked in the font rendering details.

thx a lot mate!
the tweaking made an improvement

I'm using the same you sent me in screenshot, already much better, still feeling it wasn't the same situation I had before the update, but I guess I can go with those.
rolandpish

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by rolandpish »

Hi.

Is there a fix or a workaround available to make the fonts look better?
After the upgrade I noticed that the fonts don't look good.

Cheers
elp

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by elp »

Monsta
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Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2011 3:46 am

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by Monsta »

Hmm, but that wiki section just repeats the same settings you can adjust in the Appearance preferences.

And actually... actually I thought all these complaints imply that smoothing, hinting and subpixel order are already set as shown above.
Why?
Because a) it's quite common to have these options set exactly as shown above and b) they are not reset or something like that when you upgrade to UP5. :)
BucolicBuffalo
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Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:15 am

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by BucolicBuffalo »

There has got to be an easy way to fix these stupid looking fonts! Something other than tweaking and frustrating ourselves for hours on end!
GeneC

Re: Fonts after upgrade -HACK fix!

Post by GeneC »

About the fonts issue after upgrade to UP5 in LMDE.
Those of us tracking SID ran into this issue a few months back. For me, personally the bad fonts only were an issue in browsers and a couple other (Un-remembered :)) programs.

A fix, really a 'hack' was applied from here. :arrow: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 30#p400290
I found those instruction a little 'vague'.
This is my own experience. :arrow: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 85#p581985
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.... :D
It made a big difference in browsers.
Monsta
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Posts: 3071
Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2011 3:46 am

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by Monsta »

Thinking out loud about what I've just read when I followed GeneC's links... :D

1. Reconfiguring fontconfig-config just changes a few symlinks in /etc/fonts/conf.d to point to the appropriate (depending on what has been chosen during the reconfiguration) files in /etc/fonts/conf.avail.
2. Ubuntu's fontconfig-config package has additional symlinks which are missing in Debian's one. For example, 11-lcdfilter-default.conf. Look at the file list and see for yourself.
3. I suspect that setting things in ~/.fonts.conf works only if there is the respective symlink in /etc/fonts/conf.d. For example, the lcdfilter option won't do anything unless you have /etc/fonts/conf.d/11-lcdfilter-default.conf pointing to ../conf.avail/11-lcd-filter-lcddefault.conf. This is just my speculation, please correct me if I'm wrong.

So here's what I've done. I didn't reconfigure fontconfig-config, didn't install Ubuntu's version of it, didn't even create and edit ~/.fonts.conf.
Just made a little script that makes all the missing symlinks (I hope I didn't miss any of them myself) and ran it as root.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

WHOAMI=`whoami`
if [ x$WHOAMI != xroot ]; then
    echo Please run me as root.
    exit 1
fi

cd /etc/fonts/conf.d

ln -s ../conf.avail/10-antialias.conf 10-antialias.conf
ln -s ../conf.avail/10-hinting.conf 10-hinting.conf
ln -s ../conf.avail/10-hinting-slight.conf 10-hinting-slight.conf
ln -s ../conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf 11-lcdfilter-default.conf
ln -s ../conf.avail/53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf 53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf
Font quality got better. Immediately.

Though I have some doubts about some of the fonts (not all of them) in Firefox. And I don't use Chrome.
Moreover, my eyes are quite tired from today's tinkering with all this font stuff, so I may have missed something. Just test this script please and see if it works for you. :)
killer de bug

Re: Fonts after upgrade

Post by killer de bug »

Monsta wrote:Thinking out loud about what I've just read when I followed GeneC's links... :D

[...]

Though I have some doubts about some of the fonts (not all of them) in Firefox. And I don't use Chrome.
Moreover, my eyes are quite tired from today's tinkering with all this font stuff, so I may have missed something. Just test this script please and see if it works for you. :)
Thanks for the work Monsta. I will try it as soon as I come back home from work. I will give my feedback ;)
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