Fonts after upgrade

[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

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[zerozero]

yep, as killer is saying
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]

Ah yes. Brilliant thanks gents.

[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]

please install mint-themes

Code: Select all

apt install mint-themes

[clod81]

please install mint-themes

Code: Select all

apt install mint-themes

thx

is monospace the default font?

[zerozero]

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

[clod81]

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]

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]

http://wiki.debian.org/Fonts#Subpixel-h ... -smoothing

Maybe that can help you?

[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]

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]

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. http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 30#p400290
I found those instruction a little 'vague'.
This is my own experience. viewtopic.php?f=201&t=102505&p=581985#p581985
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK....
It made a big difference in browsers.

[Monsta]

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

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]

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

[...]

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