Font rendering is ugly. Which font and settings to use?
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Font rendering is ugly. Which font and settings to use?
Happy new year everyone! I always thought that Linux had very ugly font rendering and tbh I didn't looked a lot about it. The only time I thought that I had a good font rendering with Linux was when I was using Kubuntu (I thought it was 19.4 but not sure). Here the font rendering was great and the screen was bright and the colors were amazing (so I don't know if it's just the font rendering in the end tho I'm guessing fonts as the pictures and videos seem to be ok).
I'm using Artix Linux (per-configured Arch basically) with the DWM window manager. Is there anyone who had the same problem but was able to fix it? I haven't mess with any of the settings and I'm using the default fonts. So I suppose there may be some things I can do about this problem but no matter what I tried, It will not work. So now I'm back using the default settings after nothing worked. Any ideas?
You "nice font rendering" may have been the KDE bits. If it really was the fonts, those are easy to change and examine, so you can find what is good for you. If the real solution is KDE, examining fonts will not help.
You "nice font rendering" may have been the KDE bits. If it really was the fonts, those are easy to change and examine, so you can find what is good for you. If the real solution is KDE, examining fonts will not help.
If I'm not wrong, Isn't a desktop environment a collection of utilities (WM, Programs, Settings etc.)? In this case, I don't see anything that I won't be able to use with DWM (except the WM of course).
Excuse my ignorance, but does DWM support antialiasing at all? I do see that Xft support was added to dmenu back in May 2015, but not sure if DWM makes use of it. When I last checked it didn't, but that was before 2015.
Great fonts are the default in high resolution environments. They also look better when you aren't too close to the screen. Are you using a 1366x768 resolution on a desktop display, 19" or more?
Great fonts are the default in high resolution environments. They also look better when you aren't too close to the screen. Are you using a 1366x768 resolution on a desktop display, 19" or more?
Code:
inxi -Ga
would tell us what you should expect.
Thanks! No, I'm using 1920x1080. Here is the output of the command:
Excuse my ignorance, but does DWM support antialiasing at all? A do see that Xft support was added to dmenu back in May 2015, but not sure if DWM makes use of it. When I last checked it didn't, but that was before 2015.
Excuse you? What??? I should be thankful that you try to help!
So I made a research but I wasn't able to find anything that either says that DWM supports antialiasing or that it doesn't. When you got your info back then? Is there an official source?
You have a screen that physically is 24.5" diagonally, but X is treating as a 22.9" display. That means its actual DPI (pixel density) is ~90, while X is applying a density of 96. Fonts don't start getting obviously better automatically until density is around 120 or so, unless you move your eyes away from the screen several inches or more. How close is your face to your screen? Increased density shows up fast though. A 27" 2560x1440 screen has a DPI of 109. That might be enough to make you quite glad if you made the upgrade, especially if you have X apply a logical DPI of 120, as any given physical size font has more pixels as a squared function. e.g. a 12pt font on a 96 DPI screen has a pixel box nominally 8x16=128. To get that 12pt physical size on a 120 DPI screen requires a nominal size 10x20=200, for an increase of 56.25%, for much better glyph shaping naturally.
You have a screen that physically is 24.5" diagonally, but X is treating as a 22.9" display. That means its actual DPI (pixel density) is ~90, while X is applying a density of 96. Fonts don't start getting obviously better automatically until density is around 120 or so, unless you move your eyes away from the screen several inches or more. How close is your face to your screen? Increased density shows up fast though. A 27" 2560x1440 screen has a DPI of 109. That might be enough to make you quite glad if you made the upgrade, especially if you have X apply a logical DPI of 120, as any given physical size font has more pixels as a squared function. e.g. a 12pt font on a 96 DPI screen has a pixel box nominally 8x16=128. To get that 12pt physical size on a 120 DPI screen requires a nominal size 10x20=200, for an increase of 56.25%, for much better glyph shaping naturally.
Thanks! How Can I make the X server treat my screen with its normal size and the DPI it should had? I'm not sitting to close to the screen but not to far away either. I mostly try to keep a distance tho. Any ideas? If I had to update tho (and I plan to some time in the future), I would go for a 4k 27inch tv or maybe a laptop
If you are willing to set all this up manually, go ahead.
If not - why not use Ubuntu again?
Thanks for the info! Well I just tried the latest Kubuntu and it is the same as in my DWM (maybe slightly better, maybe) so I will have to make manually anyway!
Thanks! How Can I make the X server treat my screen with its normal size and the DPI it should had? I'm not sitting to close to the screen but not to far away either.
The long story is it's complicated, and there are various ways to change it, none of which will affect 100% of applications and DEs. To implement a DPI change across the board, across all apps, means multiple things must be done. The short story is most DE's have a setting somewhere to explicitly set DPI, which will affect most apps. You can test other DPIs using the xrandr utility, e.g. xrandr --dpi 120. It only affects apps opened after it is used. For it to always have an effect requires it be run via an X init script. Another means is via the xrdb variable Xft.dpi, which you can Google to learn about.
Note that fonts will usually look worse if you set a DPI less than 96. Most web fonts are designed so smaller font sizes on low DPI screens, which means few pixels to work with, look their best precisely at 96 DPI, whether or not actual DPI is 96. All else being equal, the more pixels, the better the fonts.
The long story is it's complicated, and there are various ways to change it, none of which will affect 100% of applications and DEs. To implement a DPI change across the board, across all apps, means multiple things must be done. The short story is most DE's have a setting somewhere to explicitly set DPI, which will affect most apps. You can test other DPIs using the xrandr utility, e.g. xrandr --dpi 120. It only affects apps opened after it is used. For it to always have an effect requires it be run via an X init script. Another means is via the xrdb variable Xft.dpi, which you can Google to learn about.
Note that fonts will usually look worse if you set a DPI less than 96. Most web fonts are designed so smaller font sizes on low DPI screens, which means few pixels to work with, look their best precisely at 96 DPI, whether or not actual DPI is 96. All else being equal, the more pixels, the better the fonts.
Thanks! I found somewhere that the current DPI may not be your screens real DPI and that there is a way to calculate which is the right one for your screen but I don't remember the article...
s-dpi & s-size are the "sizes" employed by the Xorg server. The physical dpi & dimensions don't have 's-'.
Hmm. Weird... My screen is 24.5 inch and its dpi based on its resolution is 89 (which is what I set). Anyway probably I'll buy a 4k in the future but I heard that these don't play good with Linux somewhere but of course I will not trust any random source online, lol
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