openSuse and font rendering - KDE & Gnome

[nathan-ace]

In the next couple of days I’m intending to move to openSuse after a year of vacillating between XP, Vista, 7 and Ubuntu/Mint. One of my main uses for a computer is word processing, but I’ve noticed font rendering is not at its best in much of Linux. Ubuntu made a great leap as of 9.04, and therefore so did Mint, but whatever was done with the configuration, despite the free and open source factor, hasn’t been implemented in many other distros, including I think openSuse. Even Kubuntu is behind - the settings don’t seem to alter no matter what is picked in the relevant configuration panel. Several versions of KDE 4 have come and gone without this being seen to.

I am going by live CDs, for example I have 11.2 KDE version which I tried again today and found the same mysterious lack of change as occurs with Kubuntu when the settings are altered. So, has this since been put right with an update or user’s tweak, or do people not even know or notice what I’m meaning? Using Open Office’s word processor, the fonts aren’t correct, often too skinny or spidery, which is what made me hesitant about Linux when I first dipped in, with Ubuntu 8.10.

I’ve tried the last four openSuse Gnome editions, and with the ‘slight’ settings for lcd screens the colour fringing is very apparent, as with Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10. The ‘medium’ and ‘full’ settings cause fonts, Roman type especially, to become skinny and spidery.

I’m hoping someone has been able to import the oddly secret change Ubuntu made into openSuse.

Thanks for any pointers on this.

[tommyttt]

@nathan-ace

In the next couple of days I’m intending to move to openSuse after a year of vacillating between XP, Vista, 7 and Ubuntu/Mint. One of my main uses for a computer is word processing, but I’ve noticed font rendering is not at its best in much of Linux. Ubuntu made a great leap as of 9.04, and therefore so did Mint, but whatever was done with the configuration, despite the free and open source factor, hasn’t been implemented in many other distros, including I think openSuse. Even Kubuntu is behind - the settings don’t seem to alter no matter what is picked in the relevant configuration panel. Several versions of KDE 4 have come and gone without this being seen to.

I am going by live CDs, for example I have 11.2 KDE version which I tried again today and found the same mysterious lack of change as occurs with Kubuntu when the settings are altered. So, has this since been put right with an update or user’s tweak, or do people not even know or notice what I’m meaning? Using Open Office’s word processor, the fonts aren’t correct, often too skinny or spidery, which is what made me hesitant about Linux when I first dipped in, with Ubuntu 8.10.

I’ve tried the last four openSuse Gnome editions, and with the ‘slight’ settings for lcd screens the colour fringing is very apparent, as with Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10. The ‘medium’ and ‘full’ settings cause fonts, Roman type especially, to become skinny and spidery.

I’m hoping someone has been able to import the oddly secret change Ubuntu made into openSuse.

Thanks for any pointers on this.

Since font changes occur properly on my laptop and desktop, your problem may be with hardware, particularly your video card/chipset. Some fonts do show up very thin and spidery which is a characteristic of that font. Have you tried ones like “liberation sans” or “arial bold”? They definately aren’t thin on my systems.

As for OpenOffice, are you using the version from openoffice.org or from openSUSE? If the openSUSE version, try the openoffice.org one. You’ll need to compile it using standard linux compile procedure (configure, make, make-install_) bit it’s worth it.

HTH, Tom