Fonts on Linux: A Rant

Damn right. I could not possibly being to put into words how much I agree with you. It's so *damned* frustrating. And what's more frustrating is that there is probably 197 sourceforge projects trying to make linux fonts nice, instead of the OSS guys actually knocking their heads together and produce one decent 100% working result.

Jeremy,

Did you follow these instructions?

http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/

They help a ton. And setting up TrueType fonts in
XFree86 4.0 is even easier.

Get XFT builds in order to have decent fonts. XFT will be enabled by default in the future.

http://arcade.ragweed.net/phoenix/Firebird-Xft-0.6-1.i386.rpm

The difference is XFT and Fontconfig. XFT makes fonts pretty. Fontconfig makes font matching/nameing sane.

Both are somewhat new, so they're not always enabled. Why it isn't enabled at run-time is beyond me, though. Very stupid, agreed.

This used to be a issue *before* Xft. I use Xft builds of FireBird and I've concluded Windows is not ready for desktop use yet :-) I started using Bitstream Vera fonts as standard fonts (http://www.gnome.org/fonts/) - haven't booted into WinXP for 3 months now on my home machine.

BTW, I'm not a linux or OSS-only hard core proponent. Got so sick of my Win98 crashing and WinXP getting service-packed and virused that I started using Mandrake Linux for my desktop. No more BSOD that even my wife has mostly switched to Linux - also, both of us love virtual desktops.

This image is how your site looks like in Mozilla 1.4a with xft enabled.

cheers,

I think it is ready for the desktop. The fact that I can get tons of work done in an environment that is pleasing
to me is good enough.

However, I'm sure this depends on what crowd or people we're talking about. The learning curve for the average user coming from Windows is far too great. I wonder if much of the squawk we hear on the net about the issues with Linux and the desktop are being put out by frustrated people using Windows as a point of reference.(I know that doesn't include you J). Don't you allways hear them saying, "In Windows, I can do this"? At least nobody here said it.

Cheers,
BDKR

One thing I'm noticing in all these comments is basically, "Oh, just build/install/whatever such and such, and it'll all work". I don't think that was the point he was trying to make. He was trying to say that on the other major OS's, fonts are a no-brainer. They just work, and every app has the same list of fonts as every other app.

This isn' the case on Linux, apparently. There is absolutely no reason that, by default, all these neato-spiffy font apps should be enabled so that there will be a consistent font experience across the board. Period. End of story. To have any less, just doesn't even begin to cut it.

Hrm... there is something about your setup (I bet that Firebird hasn't been setup to do Xft). Under FreeBSD 5.1-Current with Mozilla (1.3.0) and Konqueror (3.1.2), I've got smooth anti-aliased fonts. I think the biggest thing is to make sure that your application has been setup with Xft support (usually --enable-xft in mozilla) and it does help to have a recent build of XFree86 (4.3.0 I've had no problems with under Debian/Red Hat/FreeBSD).

I wrote about this very thing not to long ago, though I found the solution.

http://www.phpcomplete.com/articles.php/360

I just read your "Burning Question" part, and your "Conclusion", and I must say, I think your completely wrong. Linux isn't ready for the desktop? I for one don't think Linux is read for the desktop, but their are certain distrobutions which are ready.

I take a look at my current desktop, and I have nice, anti-aliased font's in my browser, and in my applications. It simply works, and it didn't take much to get it to work (it was on by default). When I installed by distrobution, it just worked. I can remember having to turn on anti-alias fonts in Windows though (Win2k I believe).

I opened up my Konqueror, and behold, your site looks fine. Granted, the font is a bit bigger, but that's just a problem with any browser on any system, they always look different.

I can understand you my be frustrated, but saying Linux isn't ready for the desktop is like me saying Databases aren't ready for use. At least give us the pleasure of knowing with distrobution and version you are using. That at least would clarify things. I mean, you go into bashing X and Linux, asking things that, well, were pretty simple (or default) for me when I installed Linux on my system.

Maybe, just maybe, your distrobution isn't ready for the desktop?

It is a pain. Fortunately, more distros are coming with nice fonts out of the box these days. RedHat 8+, Debian unstable, and I assume Mandrake all use fontconfig, xft, and the latest font doodads to anti-alias fonts and provide truetype support in KDE 3+ and Gnome 2+. Grab the xft enabled Moz builds and things should lok a LOT better.

Unfortunately, installing NEW fonts is still something of a mystery to me. Fortunately, Debian has a ton of decent fonts (like the MS Core Fonts and the Vera fonts) available as packages.

Installing Fonts via KDE (at least in SuSE) is easy. In the KDE Control Center, System Administration, Font Installer.

Found this in 10 seconds. Just opened up the SuSE Linux User Guide book that comes in the boxed version, and looked in the Index for Fonts, section installing, and it exaplains where it is.

I just added the fonts I want (in Administrator mode), and activated them. They were then working in all my programs. I now have 1000+ different fonts installed on my system (not that I need that many =) ) I am by no means wanting to sound like a fanboy (there are still several things that bug me), but just recounting how easy it is. Just because a Linux distro makes it difficult doesn't mean it has to be.

i agree that fonts should just work out of the box. this seems to be the case with gentoo. i've nevered twiddled any setting even remotely related to fonts and i see everything with nice, beautiful AA fonts in Firebird.

As already said, this is diference betwean fontconfig&XFT2 and XFT1. Use xlsfonts and fc-list utillities to locate a problem. Then, recompile firebird (and/or) Mozilla Gecko library to support your XFT2 and fontconfig.

I agree with milbertus.

And if you have those pretty fonts working, try printing them. Or printing anything at all.

My speakers won't work on Linux (I'm using RedHat 8). Funny; I just had to plug them in when it was a Windows NT box.

What a fscking pain.

I like Linux. Really, I do.

But ready for the unwashed masses (as opposed to the unbathed few)? Please.

For all the bitching about how Windows makes you restart when you install new software, why can't you change your screen's resolution without restarting X?

Joe, you prove my point perfectly.

"My speakers won't work on Linux (I'm using RedHat 8). Funny; I just had to plug them in when it was a Windows NT box."

Do you have any idea how hard it was/is for the the OSS (open sound) guys to get some of the card and chipset companies to provide them with the needed information to create drivers? Some of the played ball and everything was nice. Some of the others pulled the SCO routine and were snobs about it. The truth is that it's a miracle that some cards work as there was no help whatsoever from the manufacturers.

"For all the bitching about how Windows makes you restart when you install new software, why can't you change your screen's resolution without restarting X?"

"ctrl"+"alt"+"+" or "-"!

When you get right down to it, Linux has a cost of admission. Plain and simple as that! And that cost is learning and dealing with some of the rough edges. Fine, I've accepted it and paid my cost. But I got a system that's immensely more powerful then that MicroReich garbage FOR FREE! There are guys out there that are doing some hard work out there and people here are sniveling? How many people who've commented on this post are contributing to kernel.org or xfree86?

Crying shame!

BDKR

I could say more, but it comes down to this: Windows is as as unusable as Linux. But it's like driving on the left side of the road, your not used to it.

Everyone complaining about things here are comparing to Windows as if Windows doesn't have problems. You expect Linux to be the holy grail.

Just to make it clear, Windows prevents you from doing things out of the box. It's as simple as that. Go out and buy a Copy of Windows XP, and a copy of SuSE 8.2, and see which version allows you to create Word Doc's out of the box?

Linux.

Which version doesn't need to be patched before you use email?

Linux.

Which version has anti-aliased font's by default: both.

Which OS doesn't require you purchase anti-virus software?

Linux.

Which version can you install on more than on computer?

Linux.

Which OS doesn't require you to use the command line to install software?

Both.

Which OS doesn't require you to use the command line to install non-packaged software (like RPM's)?

Both.

Linux is just as read for the desktop as Windows is. It just does things differently. It's not more difficult to do them in Linux, it's just different.

People always say "But Joe User doens't know the command line". Hell, Joe User doens't know how to start the Internet on his computer! I have seen it first hand.

Stop suggesting that Linux isn't ready for the desktop when it's more like you aren't ready to make the switch.

Linux isn't ready for the desktop, hah! It started out as an OS for someone's personal desktop.

Jason said:

But it's like driving on the left side of the road, your not used to it.

I'm not used to it?!

I've been using Linux since the pre-1.0 days. I'm more than used to it. I'm just sick of the fact that my fonts suck. It doesn't need to be this damned hard.

"I've been using Linux since the pre-1.0 days. I'm more than used to it. I'm just sick of the fact that my fonts suck. It doesn't need to be this damned hard."

Your right, it doesn't, and it isn't. Your rant against Linux isn't against Linux, but against whatever distro you are using. I mean, if your sitting here using Gentoo, then you deserve the frustration you are getting. If you are using SuSE or RedHat, then obviously that distrobution isn't putting in the the effort into their product that their customers demand. Again, it's a "speak with your wallet" kind of thing.

Your rant is a rant, yes. But it's still wrong. Would I be justified in saying that Linux isn't ready for embedded use, and be using Lindows to try and accomplish this? No.

Linux is just the kernel, the distrobution is the whole system. I read your blog often, and agree with most of what you say. But you rant about Linux, and never give a clue as to which distro you use.

And secondly, Firebird is still a beta product. As good as it is, and as much as well all treat it like it should be a fully released version of the software, it's still beta. I even need to remind myself of that.

And the driving comment wasn't targetted at you directly, but to the general reviewer who spews "Linux is not ready for the desktop." without a real clue. I know your standings, and I understand your skills. Still, for the problem you are having, it's really easy to solve.

Why is Linux not ready for Desktop? My answer is X sucks.

"Why is Linux not ready for Desktop? My answer is X sucks."

Why or how? Are you saying this from the viewpoint of a developer or user? Without stating a reason for a particular stance, dont' we run the risk of our voice being considered noise?

Cheers,
BDKR

Get Mandrake 9.1 which uses Xft2 and freetype2. You really have some old stuff. Yes, this use to be the case, but Linux has advanced beyond the font issue now. Find it at your nearest mirror.

Linux not only lacks good fonts (you still need to chase down Microsoft's web fonts) but it lacks a way of enforcing a user's font choices across all applications.

This is one area in which Linux's and open source's ballyhooed offering of "choices" backfires. Faced with a choice between Good Display and Bad Display, who would opt for bad?

Linux not only lacks good fonts (you still need to chase down Microsoft's web fonts) but it lacks a way of enforcing a user's font choices across all applications.

This is one area in which Linux's and open source's ballyhooed offering of "choices" backfires. Faced with a choice between Good Display and Bad Display, who would opt for bad?

BDKR:

Just because software is free (as in beer) doesn't make it immune to fair criticism.

We can bash "MicroReich" (that's a nice illustration of a lack of perspective a.k.a. Godwin's Law) all we want, but then when someone like Jeremy points out that "It doesn't need to be this damned hard", why circle the wagons and call it "sniveling"?

Lighten up. I said I like Linux. I use it every day at work and two out of my three home boxes run it (no partitions; it's the only OS).

Are you really implying that Linux users have no right to complain unless they are software developers, and kernel or xfree86 developers at that?

Joe

Agreed. The Font debate is the biggest reason I _ever_ get frustrated with linux. Other issues such as 'Gee.. I have no word processor compatible with what my windows friends use' or 'I use quicken on windows and don't want to learn a new program' ... these are understandable, and I have no problem working around/with them.

But if the damn operating system can't display the information for me to read.. what the hell.. and why do I _have_ to follow a 'How-To' to get it working.. should it work already?

Make me wonder if all the folks working on X and the font servers are working in a text environment only or what....

I agree that Linux needs better font tools and that X could use a considerable investment in this area, but what I find odd about this post is that I prefer the appearance of the screenshots you say look terrible. The anti-aliasing looks smeared and messy and the unaliased rendering looks crisp and legible. Am I the only one in the world with this perception/preference? I'm quite myopic, and nonetheless use a high resolution desktop, so perhaps that's the reason.

This whole argument is MUTE because the discussion is purely naive! Sure you have to download microsoft core fonts because they are microsoft's and they are patented. That is just a fact of life. Besides, there are perfectly good replacements for microsofts core fonts. The KDE font installer in the KDE control panel allow you to add fonts on a PER USER basis (as well as system wide) that show up immediately in all applications. It even has a font previewer.

Most of you just seem to have overlooked the power of fonts in Linux and are referring to an old situation. Please do the research before critizing due to your own laziness.

I will say this I have used just about every Distro out there and as I see it here is your option for clean and clear with standerd fonts no MS fonts needed....

1.Gentoo I dont have time for it!!!

2.Slackware not for the newbie

3.Libranet2.8 its great with a ton of programs and one click of a button any font you want you got it!!! This one will soon be up there in the top 2 Distro this is a must try!!!!!!!

4.Redhat9.0 is ok to great for newbies

Joe Grossberg:

"Just because software is free (as in beer) doesn't make it immune to fair criticism."

Well said, and I agree. However, there IS a difference between sniveling and ranting and then
saying things about which one has no idea. I never said Jeremy was and never will! My reaction was to stuff like...

"For all the bitching about how Windows makes you restart when you install new software, why can't you change your screen's resolution without restarting X?"

... which is just downright incorrect!

"Are you really implying that Linux users have no right to complain unless they are software developers, and kernel or xfree86 developers at that?"

Actually? No! However, if you're going to say something, at least make sure it's correct.

It's time for me to shut up now as in accordance with Godwin's Law (nevermind the question of it's application being in context), I've allready lost!

BDKR

BDKR:

"... which is just downright incorrect! "

I do CTRL-ALT-+ and I have lower resolution, but I lose any windows or other apps that were near the edge of my screen, including my toolbar.

I do CTRL-ALT-"-" and it's the same effect, except much more of a "zoom".

If I use RedHat - System Settings - Display, I get a great Windows-esque dialogue box and, after making my choice, the message:

"Display settings changed.
You need to log out and restart the X server for the changes to take effect.
Configuration was written to /etc/X11/XF86Config, original configuration saved as /etc/X11/XF86Config.backup."

Perhaps it's more of a Metacity bug, than an X one, so I'll amend what I said:

In RedHat 8, there is no acceptably good way to change your resolution without restarting X.

Satisfied? :)

Joe

Hi Jeremy,

As others have mentioned already, you need to use the xft extensions to XFree. Here's a screenshot of Galeon using the new Vera fonts available from the Gnome guys. I think that Mozilla/Galeon/Firebird on RH9 (or similar modern X desktop) looks even better than MSIE..

Wow, I love it! Seeing the Linux users trying to justify the pain they go through just to install fonts is better than any rerun of Seinfeld!

Guys, say what you will about the cost of Apple hardware, but at the end of the day, it's far better to shell out a few more bucks than to see if you have Xft installed, or if the software is linked against the correct library, or if your font paths are set up correctly, or if X is in the correct mode...

Unix is ready for the desktop -- you just need to get the Mac OS X distribution instead of the Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, etc distributions.

Let me get this straight:

Instead of having non-aliased fonts and a crappy font selection system in one beta release of an application which you could have simply downloaded a version of with anti-aliasing compiled in, you would rather go the MS route which would involve you reinstalling your entire OS and all relevant apps to access better font technology rather than have the *option* of being able to upgrade fundamental parts of the OS incrementally.

Congratulations: Red Hat 9 and many other recent distributions fit the bill. Get busy re-installing. Hooray! This must mean Linux is ready for the desktop. Yeah! w00t!

On a more serious note I highly recommend the Bitstream Vera family of fonts available from www.gnome.org/fonts which I have even installed on my Mac OS X box because they are *that* good, particularly Vera Sans Mono.

Watch out though, installation on Linux was much harder. On Mac OS X I had to put the files into ~/Library/Fonts, on Red Hat it was ~/.fonts

I don't know, man... Linux not ready for the desktop? Just because Firebird loads crap fonts? That's a pretty wide brush you've painted all of Linux with for just the one app.

I just got done using Linux all day at work and I'm back on here at home. I'll repeat that all week. I wouldn't be able to do what I do without it. Linux has been ready for the desktop for years, depending on which desktop you are talking about. Does Linux pass the Mom test? No, not yet (it's very close, though; stuff like CUPS goes a long way). Does it work for the average computer literate user? Sure. There might have to be some fiddling, but at least you don't have to pay for software if you don't want to. Hell, I remember seeing a stack of 15 Slackware floppies and seeing an adventure, though I'll concede that most people wouldn't have been similarly engaged. But I'm preaching to the Pope here...

BTW, your blog looks fine on my Red Hat 9 desktop, in both Konqueror and Opera. I've not messed with my fonts on this box at all.

Your font problem seems not to be a Linux problem but a Firebird problem. Your fonts look horrible using Firebird under Windows too. Look here.

I don't konw, all my fonts look great. Your blog looks perfect on my end, anti-aliased sub-pixeled and all. Would post a screenshot if I could. I didn't do jack squat to get it this way. (just "emerge mozilla" and wait a day and a half) And I don't know jack squat about Linux.

Yes, fonts suck under Linux. "Oh, you don't have XFT enabled!" WHAT THE HECK IS XFT? WHY DO YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS, AND WHY DO YOU NEED TO ENABLE IT?

If Linux was ready for the desktop, you would be able to go to Mozilla.org, download their latest browser, click on "setup", install the program, and the fonts would look great when you run it. THIS IS *NOT* THE CURRENT CASE!

The case is... Fonts suck under Linux.

Jeez...Linux fonts used to be crappy, until Xft, which came out in 2000 I think. I don't know why Konqueror looks bad as KDE uses Xft. Maybe you have antialiasing disabled in KDE. Maybe it is just not a font Xft will antialias. CALM DOWN. You are complaining about Firebird, which is not even stable release, and Konqueror; you have something misconfigured there. Try turning on antialiasing. The only thing that's really crappy about Linux fonts is GTK+, and Gnome 2.0. But for that, just download Gdkxft, and get the latest release of Gnome which is way better. Qt, GTK2, GTK+, and OpenOffice all can antialias text. It looks fine to me, I don't know what your problem is.

And Windos fonts "not an issue"? Puh-leez! Windoze fonts are the WORST ever, and there's no Xft to fix them either. Try looking at W2K 'Professional' and tell me how great the fonts are...

I'm a web developer and I use both Win32/NT/Mac(Classic/OSX)/Linux. I do understand the problems being experienced with fonts on Linux, but I don't think it is anti-aliasing that you should worry about.

A great many websites use fixed sized fonts which render very small in a lot of linux web browsers. This is unusual, and a problem.

However, having fonts anti-aliasing on a webpage in windows is not possbile! The only browsers which I know of that anti-aliase fonts out of the box are the konquerer family, including Safari. MSIE doesn't do this! Check it if you don't believe me. Your blog looks very similar from my Win2000PC/IE/Moz/Opera to how it looks on you Knoppix/Firebird screenshot!

Cheers,

John

I am learning that same lesson right now. I added a 40GB hard drive for Linux and the fonts I was using in Mozilla's browser looked horrible. So, I added true type (e.g. arial, times new roman, courier new) and they too rendered horribly.

Booting to my original hard drive with Windows is like driving without the windshield wipers on, i.e., better visibility.

Ok, your first problem is the Knoppix. Knoppix is not as advanced as some of the other Linux software out there. It is true (as some have commented) that Linux still has problems. For instance, you cannot play CD's well if you are using a sound card built into the motherboard (you have to have a separate sound card), and there are some other difficulties that crop up now and then, but the font issue is a version problem.

My personal favorite version of Linux is SuSE linux 9.1. Fonts work fine on everything that I have used. My advice is to use SuSE or RedHat, not Knoppix.

Hey,
I installed Mandrake Linux 10.0, and the fonts were just horrendous. I tried to make them un-ugly, but gave up after coming to the same conclusion as you, i.e. Linux isn't quite ready for the desktop because of fonts.
But recently I installed Fedora Core 3 and the fonts are pretty good (for Linux) out of the box. This is probably because the font renderer for Fedora Core is freetype 2.1.x. You can even make them better by upgrading to the 2.1.x with BCI enabled (This is copyright stuff, so tread carefully there) :).

I have just followed these instructions under Fedora Core 3 and I am now using Tahoma 8pt as a main GUI font...and it looks almost exactly as on Windows. It took me so long to solve this fonts issue...

Read it here:

http://avi.alkalay.net/linux/docs/font-howto/Font.html

At first, I was dissapointed by my Knoppix fonts.

However I went to the settings in Control Centre->Fonts and clicked on 'Anti Aliasing'.

Problem fixed.
I didn't know a computer screen was capable of such Crisp, Clear fonts.

Your Firebird is built to use GTK 1. GTK 1 does not support anti-aliased fonts.

im using core4/kde 3.4 and fonts still look like butt. i stopped using core2 because of the same issue. impossible to do any serious web dev etc. its great after a fresh install. desktop looks nice, menus looks nice, browsers look nice - but if you touch the font settings at all it defaults back to 'butt' mode.

then there is nothing u can do to make it look like it did. no clicking defaults does not work whatsoever. go figure...

i just made the mistake of changing them and then rebooting and now its in butt mode. i wish i could afford a mac. apparently reading is not important in linux guis.

Has anyone resolved the problem with firefox mentioned in the original rant? Namely that firefox "sees" different fonts than mozilla does? I still have this problem in firefox 1.5 running on Fedora Core 3. Mozilla looks great, firefox makes my eyes hurt.

Firefox should work well w/o any configuring -- Jeremy was referring to firebird (which has an incredibly beautiful red icon).
Check in Edit-->Preferences-->Content tab
to make sure that Default Font is not something you do not like--my setting is just blank, size 16.

btw, when I had Gentoo, everything was beautiful; Ubuntu is looking nice atm.

I just installed the very latest Debian and my fonts still suck in IceWeasel or whatever they are calling Firefox these days on Debian.

7 years later, and nothing has changed...