namtrac’s only offers freetype2 packages, whereas nick31’s also offers cairo and fontconfig. Is freetype2 enough to enable subpixel rendering, or are the other packages needed?
Besides that, namtrac’s repository doesn’t have builds for Tumbleweed. The closest one available is Factory, but I believe that is not recommended to use it on Tumbleweed, right?
Meanwhile, nick31 offers Tumbleweed builds but it is still “stuck” on an older freetype2 version but it offers older versions (2.6.3) than the ones currently available on Tumbleweed (2.7).
So, what are Tumbleweed users (and soon 42.2 users) supposed to use to get better font rendering on LCDs? Which one of these, or other, repositories is recommended?
I use YaST Fonts and set my configuration to Font Antialiasing Force Autohinting on, Font Hint Style none, Subpixel Rendering rgb and LCD Filter lcdnone YMMV.
If that is true and it sounds good then you have not to add any repositories, only apply your own settings from Yast or in your desktop environment settings.
Mine are always, hinting on, but slight, RGB and LCD filter on.
This repo provides Ubuntu style font rendering for OpenSUSE by implementing Ubuntu’s versions of fontconfig and freetype2 for enhanced rendering with subpixel hinting. Builds are provided for Tumbleweed, Leap 42.1 and Leap 42.2 as well as 13.1 and 13.2. This repo is currently based on Ubuntu’s 16.10 Yakkety Yak release and is updated periodically with Ubuntu’s latest versions.
Again, the purpose of my repo is to provide Ubuntu style font rendering for OpenSUSE by implementing Ubuntu’s versions of fontconfig and freetype2.
I totally agree that freetype2 version 2.7 provides improved font rendering over the previous OpenSUSE versions. Nevertheless, Ubuntu’s font rendering remains superior even over what you will see with Tumbleweed’s freetype2 version 2.7. Believe me, I have tried them all…
@gldickens3: Why is that your repository only publishes a source “freetype2” package, but not the actual RPM package? I’d like to try it, but this is puzzling me a bit…
My repo does indeed publish RPMs for both freetype2 and fontconfig which is all that you need. You simply subscribe to the repository and follow the instructions here:
You can alternatively download the RPMs directly, if you prefer not to subscribe to the repo, by simply navigating to the repo and downloading the appropriate RPM packages. For instance, for Tumbleweed, navigate to:
Thanks for all the replies. I thought I had enabled e-mail notifications but I clearly didn’t. So I thought no one had answered yet.
That said, the only thing that I find really missing on openSUSE is LCD filtering. The only option available by default (without something like gldickens3’s repository) is lcdnone filter which basically turns it off. With all the other settings correctly enabled the fonts don’t look so bad, but they are still worse than on Ubuntu and perhaps even other distros.
I believe that having lcddefault, lcdlegacy and lcdlight options available is something that can’t really be done within openSUSE’s legal standards, am I right?
On Thu 03 Nov 2016 11:36:02 AM CDT, petersaints wrote:
I believe that having lcddefault, lcdlegacy and lcdlight options
available is something that can’t really be done within openSUSE’s legal
standards, am I right?
Hi
AFAIK it’s patent encumbered, so yes…
See changelog for libfreetype6 with additional info;
rpm -q --changelog libfreetype6 |less
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What Gordon offers really works best for me on freshly installed Leap 42.2. It is better than namtrac repository, which offers only upgrade to freetype 2.7.
I’m noticing that in the Tumbleweed repo, The freetype2 package is not provided. I tried recently your solution, but after installing it, System didn’t pass from the Splash Screen, or if it did, system hang.
I’m wondering if the absence of that package is affecting in any way.
While I cannot say with 100% certainty, it looks to me like you were using my main “home” repo which is based on freetype-2.6.3. Please note that the instructions on my main project page say:
Tumbleweed requires freetype-2.7.1 from the “Advanced” repository. freetype-2.6.3 will not work with Tumbleweed due to a conflict with the version of the harfbuzz package on Tumbleweed.
Please refer to the instructions at:
I have now deleted the Tumbleweed repo on my main page which was based on freetype-2.6.3 so that will hopefully stop any further confusion. The binaries in the Advanced repo are all based on freetype-2.7.1.
