How to make fonts smooth and readable in Debian/Ubuntu?

Posted by jmdeldin on Super User See other posts from Super User or by jmdeldin
Published on 2012-06-03T08:47:29Z Indexed on 2012/06/03 10:43 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 232

Filed under:

ubuntu

|

emacs

|

fonts

|

xorg

What is the best, most foolproof way of getting nice font rendering in Linux?

Currently, I am experiencing thin, ugly fonts (shown below). I have wasted too much time tweaking fonts.conf, and I have yet to find a decent combination.

I am running Debian 6.0 with no desktop environment (just Openbox for a window manager) in a VM on a Macbook Pro (OS X 10.7.4).

Screenshots

The following screenshots were taken without fonts.conf and .Xdefaults tweaks.

running in "native" Openbox environment: http://i.imgur.com/10bnH.png
running over X11, which looks a little worse than Openbox: http://i.imgur.com/sq8jk.png

Thank you!

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about ubuntu

Cannot update, apt-get cannot fetch index files

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 from the iso 'ubuntu-11.10-desktop-amd64.iso'. I installed this in VMWare Fusion 4.1.1 running on OSX 10.7.3. When setting up the VM, I allowed easy install to take care of creating my user and installing VMWare tools. No problems during installation, everything… >>> More
'sudo apt-get update' error on Ubuntu 12.04

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
When I type in 'sudo apt-get update' I get this mohd-arafat-hossain@TUD:~$ sudo apt-get update [sudo] password for mohd-arafat-hossain: Ign http://bd.archive.ubuntu.com precise InRelease Ign http://bd.archive.ubuntu.com precise-updates InRelease Ign http://bd.archive.ubuntu… >>> More
Opening Skype, Opera, OpenOffice logs me off

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Whats common among Skype, Opera, OpenOffice in Ubuntu ? Whenever I open these applications I get logged off and shows back me the login screen. This started happening since the 10.10 upgrade. Forgot to mention : Yes, its x64.Each time I open these applications, the UI shows and then crashes. I… >>> More
Update information outdated

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have a warning triangle that my update information is outdated, the last update was 12 days ago. I use Ubuntu 11.10. A run of sudo apt-get update produces the following output: Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net oneiric InRelease Ign http://de.archive.ubuntu.com oneiric InRelease … >>> More
ubuntu/apt-get update said "Failed to Fetch http:// .... 404 not found"

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi all, I'm trying to run apt-get update on ubuntu 9.10 I've configured my proxy server and I can access the internet without any problem: /etc/apt# wget "http://www.google.com" Resolving (...) Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 292 [text/html] Saving to: `index.html' 100%[=================================================================================================================================>]… >>> More

Related posts about emacs

Error while installing emacs23 from Software Center

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Trying to install emacs in Software Center Ubuntu 12.04 got this error. installArchives() failed: Selecting previously unselected package emacs23. (Reading database ... (Reading database ... 5% (Reading database ... 10% (Reading database ... 15% (Reading database ... 20% (Reading database ... 25% (Reading… >>> More
Shorten Emacs timeout of ~/.emacs read

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
My ~/.emacs start-up file is stored in my AFS home directory. Often when I login to a linux machine I will forget to renew my AFS credentials before attempting to edit a local (non-AFS) file with Emacs. When this happens Emacs will attempt to load ~./emacs but cannot because it is in AFS space where… >>> More
Running emacs in GNU Screen overrides .emacs settings for [home] key binding in FreeBSD 8.2

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
If I use the following .emacs file, I am able to go to the beginning/end of the current line using the home/end keys as I would expect. (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) (add-to-list 'load-path "/home/sam/programs/go/go/misc/emacs/" t) (require 'go-mode-load) (global-set-key [kp-home] 'beginning-of-line)… >>> More
Emacs 23.1 make error 139 in Mac OS X 10.6.3

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
When I try to compile GNU Emacs 23.1 on my machine with Mac OS X 10.6.3 I repeatedly get the following ending: Directories: /src/emacs-23.1/lisp/. /src/emacs-23.1/lisp/./calc /src/emacs-23.1/lisp/./calendar /src/emacs-23.1/lisp/./emacs-lisp /src/emacs-23.1/lisp/./emulation /src/emacs-23.1/lisp/./erc… >>> More
portable emacs? (emacs server not working)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have seen a few suggestions on making emacs portable (on Windows). I have this in my site-start.el: (defvar program-dir (substring data-directory 0 -4)) (setq inhibit-startup-message t) (setenv "HOME" program-dir) I changed the HOME variable so that not only my .emacs init files (and other init… >>> More