Font Rendering Lnux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon

[matteo92]

Hello,

I have installed Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon on my laptop Asus N550LF a few days ago. Thanks to the help of this forum, I managed to find a good compromise for everything I needed. In particular, I followed this guide:
Improve Video performance for Intel Graphics
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... l-graphics

and I removed the package

Code: Select all

xserver-xorg-video-intel

in order to have decent graphic performance, and tearing issues disappeared. The only problem I am still facing with my integrated graphic card is font rendering, which is poor in many conditions. For example, If I read a pdf without zooming too much, some fonts are really bad rendered. I attach you an example, I am not even sure the font are proprietary, they could even be open since the document was generated though LaTex on another linux laptop.

if you click on the link, you can actually see that this example focuses on three different fonts, and only one out of three (the last row) is rendered quite well. I am using the default pdf reader. As soon as I zoom in, rendering suddenly improves, but I need to increase hugely the zoom percentage (far way greater than 100%) to obtain a good result. With zoom lower than 100%, the document is almost unreadable.

I read about Infinality font rendering:
https://www.maketecheasier.com/improve- ... ing-linux/
I am always concerned about adding PPAs to Ubuntu-based systems. Do you think it's a stable solution? is it worth to have a try? Any other suggestion?

PS. My laptop also features a dedicated nVidia GPU, but I am actually focusing on Intel optimization.

[trytip]

backup your .config/fontconfig/fonts.conf like renaming it or rightclick and compress then open it delete everything and paste this: save and reboot (if you don't have the file fonts.conf you can create a blank text document and name it as such. you didn't mention the fonts you are using and the font settings

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <edit name="antialias" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit name="hinting" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
            <const>hintslight</const>
        </edit>
        <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
            <const>rgb</const>
        </edit>
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit name="lcdfilter" mode="assign">
            <const>lcddefault</const>
        </edit>
        <edit name="dpi" mode="assign">
            <double>102</double>
        </edit>
    </match>
    <match target="font">
        <test name="weight" compare="more">
            <const>medium</const>
        </test>
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>

[matteo92]

Hello,

You are right about my font configuration, I didn't post it before. Now I have created the font.config file has you said (it didn't exist before). Morevoer, this is my font configuration windows at the moment.
https://imgur.com/qRqQKXU

Below you can find a test I did: the same document open (left) with Mint 18 default pdf viewer and (right) Chromium Browser. You can clearly see the big difference! Chromium has a decent/good rendering compared to the ugly stuff of the PDF reader. From this point of view, it's like a software issue. Anyway, I also tested other pdf books from other sources, with other fonts, and I cannot notice anymore such a strong deficit. So, it's also a font-related issue.
https://imgur.com/BoARzdh

Unfortunately, I am not able to tell you which font it is, because it was sent to me by another guy. I have just to review and read it... I only know it was written and compiled in LaTex... it looks like the default LaTex font (Modern Computer) is involved, but I need more tests to tell you.

Just for curiosity, what's the config file you sent me? how is it different from the default settings? Thanks a lot!

Update: typos and pictures corrections. Picture quality is still poor...

[InkKnife]

There are control for font display located in the "Fonts" control panel in system settings.
But my guess is you are looking at a flattened PDF so you are not looking at fonts, you are looking at an image of fonts and not a good one, like the document was scanned poorly.

[matteo92]

There are control for font display located in the "Fonts" control panel in system settings.

I think you mean these ones:

• Text Scaling Factor = 1.0

• Hinting = slight

• Anti-aliasing = rgba

• RGBA order = RGB

But my guess is you are looking at a flattened PDF so you are not looking at fonts, you are looking at an image of fonts and not a good one, like the document was scanned poorly.

for what I know, the document was compiled from MikTex, maybe font rendering was poor due to some package issues, who knows... I am gonna investigating about it. Anyway, Mozilla Firifox, Chromium Browser and ultra-lightweight MuPDF readers have no problem with font rendering the very same document. It is somewhat related to Xreader

[trytip]

i have come to realize that font hinting in mint19 cinnamon does not do anything. does any one notice any changes going from slight to medium to full to none?

[bill_steamshovel]

Trytip,

Thanks for your efforts in suggesting the fix.

The only things that make any difference to my fonts are font type, size and bold.

The various options - hinting aliasing rgb etc - at the bottom of that font settings page have no effect whatsoever on my system

I agree with the OP rggarding fuzzy fonts - the only flaw in Linux Mint as far as I am concerned.

I tried your suggested fix and nothing changed but it was interesting to note that the file and even the folder it was kept in didnt exist on my system until I put it there.

Have been googling this for a while now and various things are suggested on the web.

Thanks for your efforts in suggesting the fix.

Bill

[trytip]

i just installed mint-meta-xfce trying to test things. it's hard to distinguish between ubuntu and mint packages which now is a mistmatch of working and non-working configurations. testing the fonts in xfce gives me the same options as cinnamon to change size and now in xfce i can use custom DPI settings of 97 but font hinting does not work at all

as far as fuzzy fonts i don't have them but i do suffer from fonts too close to each other probably product of no hinting. i have broken the desktop quite a few times but nothing gives me better fonts.

i have given up. my fonts are 100% better in arch linux xfce and even mint mate 17.3 not sure if this is a mint issue or ubuntu issue but getting tired of trying to separate the two

[trytip]

my eyes get blurry after being on the internet in mint 19. if you can tell the difference then you know what i mean. same font setup in arch linux produces different results with no eye strain. tried installing xfce in mint 19 but the browser has the same font "closeness" as cinnamon. if this is a site issue or a distro/desktop issue i can't pin it down. i used zoom 110 in both snapshots on chrome browser.

linux mint 19 cinnamon


arch linux xfce