[opensuse-factory] Change hinting style from 'hintfull' to 'hintslight'

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Petr Gajdos

19 Oct 2011 19 Oct '11

12:27

Hi List, Jon suggests to change hintstyle property to 'hintslight' in /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf, however comment in the same file reads  I think it is matter of taste and as such should be discussed here, so your comments and observations are welcome and any help with testing appreciated. I personally like this (system default) change, I found many fonts improved from my POV. See two examples attached (left hintfull, right hintslight). Best, Petr

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Steven Sroka

19 Oct 19 Oct

12:29

...

On 19 October 2011 08:27, Petr Gajdos wrote: Hi List,

Jon suggests to change hintstyle property to 'hintslight' in /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf, however comment in the same file reads



I think it is matter of taste and as such should be discussed here, so your comments and observations are welcome and any help with testing appreciated.

I personally like this (system default) change, I found many fonts improved from my POV. See two examples attached (left hintfull, right hintslight).

+1 Looks beautiful.

...

Best, Petr

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Takashi Iwai

12:39

At Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:27:02 +0200, Petr Gajdos wrote:

...

Hi List,

Jon suggests to change hintstyle property to 'hintslight' in /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf, however comment in the same file reads



I think it is matter of taste and as such should be discussed here, so your comments and observations are welcome and any help with testing appreciated.

I personally like this (system default) change, I found many fonts improved from my POV. See two examples attached (left hintfull, right hintslight).

Well, it's really a matter of taste. For example, I prefer hintfull even in your examples since hintslight looks too blur. There are fonts that don't suit with hintfull, indeed. But it's a different question whether to switch to the default for all. thanks, Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Eduard Huguet

13:15

Hi, It's not only a matter of taste, but also a matter of hardware: different LCD monitors look better at different hint levels. So be careful vefore changing the defaults... Kind regards, Eduard Huguet 2011/10/19 Takashi Iwai :

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At Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:27:02 +0200, Petr Gajdos wrote:

...
Hi List,

Jon suggests to change hintstyle property to 'hintslight' in /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf, however comment in the same file reads



I think it is matter of taste and as such should be discussed here, so your comments and observations are welcome and any help with testing appreciated.

I personally like this (system default) change, I found many fonts improved from my POV. See two examples attached (left hintfull, right hintslight).

Well, it's really a matter of taste. For example, I prefer hintfull even in your examples since hintslight looks too blur.

There are fonts that don't suit with hintfull, indeed. But it's a different question whether to switch to the default for all.

thanks,

Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Petr Gajdos

13:30

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 03:15:15PM +0200, Eduard Huguet wrote:

...

different LCD monitors look better at different hint levels. So be careful vefore changing the defaults...

That's purpose of my question :-). Do you have any specific example, where hintslight is wrong? Petr

Stefan Seyfried

24 Oct 24 Oct

08:51

On 19.10.2011 15:30, Petr Gajdos wrote:

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On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 03:15:15PM +0200, Eduard Huguet wrote:

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different LCD monitors look better at different hint levels. So be careful vefore changing the defaults...

That's purpose of my question :-). Do you have any specific example, where hintslight is wrong?

The one you made screenshots of. Hintslight is almost unreadably blurry to me. Best regards, Stefan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Claudio Freire

19 Oct 19 Oct

15:54

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Takashi Iwai wrote:

...

Well, it's really a matter of taste. For example, I prefer hintfull even in your examples since hintslight looks too blur.

+1 I use hintmedium, which is quite close to hintfull, hintslight is just too blurry and sometimes results in difficult to read text, especially in small fonts. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Petr Gajdos

20 Oct 20 Oct

11:37

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 02:39:49PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:

...

Well, it's really a matter of taste. For example, I prefer hintfull even in your examples since hintslight looks too blur.

There are fonts that don't suit with hintfull, indeed. But it's a different question whether to switch to the default for all.

Here is an counterexample of my previous examples (again left hintfull and right hintslight). I would stay with hintfull default at least for 12.1. Then we could elaborate which fonts are rendered "better" with which hintingstyle and make default conditional. I mean set hinting style to hintslight when particular font family is used. For example, <match target="font"> <test name="family"> <string>Nimbus Sans L</string> </test> <edit name="hintstyle"> <const>hintslight</const> </edit> </match> causes the small font in the search input on opensuse.org render "better" for me. What do you think? Petr

Takashi Iwai

12:07

At Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:37:02 +0200, Petr Gajdos wrote:

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On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 02:39:49PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:

...
Well, it's really a matter of taste. For example, I prefer hintfull even in your examples since hintslight looks too blur.

There are fonts that don't suit with hintfull, indeed. But it's a different question whether to switch to the default for all.

Here is an counterexample of my previous examples (again left hintfull and right hintslight).

Hmm, a wrong attachment?

...

I would stay with hintfull default at least for 12.1. Then we could elaborate which fonts are rendered "better" with which hintingstyle and make default conditional. I mean set hinting style to hintslight when particular font family is used. For example,

<match target="font"> <test name="family"> <string>Nimbus Sans L</string> </test> <edit name="hintstyle"> <const>hintslight</const> </edit> </match>

causes the small font in the search input on opensuse.org render "better" for me.

Yeah, it'd be difficult to decide in either way. Selective choice would be a good compromise. (I guess we can change the style even in the point size condition?) thanks, Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Petr Gajdos

12:50

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 02:07:52PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:

...

...
Here is an counterexample of my previous examples (again left hintfull and right hintslight).

Hmm, a wrong attachment?

Yes :-D.

...

...
causes the small font in the search input on opensuse.org render "better" for me.

would be a good compromise. (I guess we can change the style even in the point size condition?)

I hope yes, see conf.avail/20-unhint-small-vera.conf and test on pixelsize in it. Petr

Takashi Iwai

13:19

At Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:50:47 +0200, Petr Gajdos wrote:

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On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 02:07:52PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:

...
...
Here is an counterexample of my previous examples (again left hintfull and right hintslight).

Hmm, a wrong attachment?

Yes :-D.

Yeah, in this case, the glyph are slightly shrunk vertically, so looks uglier indeed. OTOH, the hintfull has still a better visibility than hintslight. For example, look at the letter "m" in the right side (check it via xmag or such). The whole glyph is filled with gray pixels. So if this letter alone is picked up without texts, you can't say what it is.

...

...
...
causes the small font in the search input on opensuse.org render "better" for me.

would be a good compromise. (I guess we can change the style even in the point size condition?)

I hope yes, see conf.avail/20-unhint-small-vera.conf and test on pixelsize in it.

Good, we have many choices :) thanks, Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Graham Anderson

24 Oct 24 Oct

17:28

On Wednesday 19 Oct 2011 14:27:02 Petr Gajdos wrote:

...

Hi List,

Jon suggests to change hintstyle property to 'hintslight' in /etc/fonts/suse-hinting.conf, however comment in the same file reads



I think it is matter of taste and as such should be discussed here, so your comments and observations are welcome and any help with testing appreciated.

I think it's more than a matter of taste, I think there something fundamentally different in the current freetype2 package in openSUSE that makes most fonts look ugly (subjective, but please see my attached reference examples below) at *any* setting. This is not a trivial matter because a lack of crisps and clear font rendering by default is noticable to the first time user, and worse; it hinders productivity for those that don't know how/where to improve things. Quick background ---------------- Please correct me if I am wrong anywhere... Before May 2010 it was common to use third party repos for freetype because we couldn't ship freetype with sub pixel hinting enabled due to patent encumberance. After May 2010 the TrueType bytecode patents expired and we could ship freetype with sub pixel hinting enabled by default. The current package in Factory and now in RC1 has sub pixel hinting enabled by default. Due to this patent situation before, many users would install a third party build of freetype2 to get the best looking font reproduction they could; because of this it's clear to me at least (and probably many others) that the font rendering by default in 12.1 is really poor compared to what is possible. Comparisons ----------- Let me show you what I mean. I have taken a series of screenshots that clearly show the differences between the openSUSE default freetype package, and and another freetype package from a third party repo hosted on the open build service. Before I list the screenshots and their descriptions I'll briefly mention hardware. People are quite correct to mention that difference screens will show fonts slightly differently; but lets be clear... the differences in physical display of the font due to the properties/technology of the monitor are unrelated to how the glyphs intended and final representation is *computed*. In practice I find the font rendering differences between LCD monitors to be negligible and i.m.o. should not be considered for the purposes of this discussion. The differences I can demonstrate in my screenshots are obvious and identical across the following LCD screens, all of which have different native DPI's and panel technologies. Dell E197, 19", 6 Years old Samsung 226BW, 24" Wide, 4 Years old Iiyama E2607WS, 26" Wide, 1 Year old All of these screenshots are taken using 12.1 RC1, with proprietary Nvidia driver, the only difference in any of the screenshots will be the font used or the freetype package installed. I used both the default sans serif and the Akkurat sans serif fonts for comparison. The code view is using the MS Consolas monospaced font which is heavily optimized for sub pixel hinting and thus should show any potential problems. Here are the comparisons with some additional notes/comments: Default openSUSE 12.1 RC1 freetype2 libfreetype6 2.4.6 ------------------------------------------------------ System Settings: http://i.imgur.com/dmRhb.png In this side-by-side comparison we can immediately see there are problems with both hintslight and hintsfull. Hintslight is slightly blurry, especially at the smaller point sizes. IF we compare the default KDE font (DejaVu sans?) to the Akkurat sans font we see the same blurred renditions. Hintsfull decreases the blurring in both fonts but as you can see it also alters the apparent physical characteristics of both fonts. With hintsfull the individial glyphs *appear* to be shorter. In truth we can't tell which is more accurately representing the font because both hintslight and hintsfull do a very poor job. In addition we can see that the default monospaced font is showing some signs of mangling when hintsfull option is enabled. More on this below with the Consolas monospaced font. Dolphin: http://i.imgur.com/HHvv2.png Font Installer: http://i.imgur.com/CUF4M.png In the font installer preview, you can see the same issues described above. Code(Consolas): http://i.imgur.com/Jj54t.png MS Consolas font is heavily optimized for type hinting, this should show any weakness in the rendering approaches. With hinstslight this looks not too bad, but again there are clear signs of blurring, especially in italicised letters and glyphs with vertical straight lines such as "u", "m" and "n". Using hintsfull reveals another problem entirely, most glyphs are so heavily hinted that large sections of text appear to be bold when in fact they are not, additionally the rendering of glyphs with diagonal straight lines appears not to have much hinting at all in comparison to other glyphs. This makes words such as "Access" and "Expired" look quite mangled, not good. Muzlocker's freetype2[1], libfreetype6 2.4.7 ----------------------------------------------------------- System Settings: http://i.imgur.com/xqoDU.png Using hintslight, you can immediately see an improvement here, the blurring is much less noticable and even at 8 point size the font is reasonably crisp. Hintsfull continues to show the same problems, while still being crisp it still changes the physical appearance of the glyphs and words, the monospace font mangling is still apparent as well. Dolphin: http://i.imgur.com/ViCrZ.png Font Installer: http://i.imgur.com/Uyx79.png Code(Consolas): http://i.imgur.com/IUv7b.png Again, hintslight here is very much improved. The text is beautifully crisp and doesn't show many signs of blurring. Hinstfull continues to show the same problems as the default freetype package, at least for this font that was specifically designed to be used with type hinting and sub-pixel rendering. So what exactly is the difference? ---------------------------------- Good question, a look at the patches for both the 12.1[2] and Muzlocker[1] freetype packages show that sub-pixel hinting is enabled in both. Weird, there's un undeniable difference in clarity between these packages, especially using hintslight. Let's take a closer look at how the fonts are being rendered. http://i.imgur.com/EpMpJ.png Aha! Here's the problem. Clearly you can see with the default openSUSE 12.1 freetype package, sub-pixel rendering is either not working or not properly enabled in the package build. There *is* antialiasing but you can clearly see there is *no* sub-pixel hinting as shown in the rendering from using Muzlocker's freetype package. Conclusion ---------- Sub-pixel rendering is _not_ enabled by default (note that antialiasing and sub-pixel rendering are not the same thing), and should be properly enabled for the freetype package. Once sub-pixel hinting/rendering is properly enabled, hintslight should be the default hinting mode. Hintslight with sub pixel rendering properly addresses any blurriness of smaller point sizes, renders crisp text and avoids the mangling of typehint enabled fonts. The first thing a new user should see on booting openSUSE is a desktop with crisp clean fonts, we certinaly don't have that right now :( [1]https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=home%3Amuzlocker [2]https://build.opensuse.org/package/files?package=freetype2&project=openSUSE%3AFactory -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Jon Nelson

17:42

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 12:28 PM, Graham Anderson wrote: ... You'd done a lot of work here. Thanks!

...

Sub-pixel rendering is _not_ enabled by default (note that antialiasing and sub-pixel rendering are not the same thing), and should be properly enabled for the freetype package. Once sub-pixel hinting/rendering is properly enabled, hintslight should be the default hinting mode. Hintslight with sub pixel rendering properly addresses any blurriness of smaller point sizes, renders crisp text and avoids the mangling of typehint enabled fonts.

You can turn on the full hinter by default with this: /etc/sysconfig/BYTECODE_BW_MAX_PIXEL="1" instead of 0. I noticed that with the *default* font (Libertine family), hintfull looks very good. With DejaVu hintslight looks better. For me, it was most noticeable with *monospace* fonts. I'd be very interested to hear your results with BYTWCODE_BW_MAX_PIXEL=1 (and then run 'fonts-config'). -- Jon -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Ilya Chernykh

18:28

On Monday 24 October 2011 21:42:51 Jon Nelson wrote:

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You'd done a lot of work here. Thanks!

...
Sub-pixel rendering is _not_ enabled by default (note that antialiasing and sub-pixel rendering are not the same thing), and should be properly enabled for the freetype package. Once sub-pixel hinting/rendering is properly enabled, hintslight should be the default hinting mode. Hintslight with sub pixel rendering properly addresses any blurriness of smaller point sizes, renders crisp text and avoids the mangling of typehint enabled fonts.

You can turn on the full hinter by default with this:

/etc/sysconfig/BYTECODE_BW_MAX_PIXEL="1" instead of 0.

I noticed that with the *default* font (Libertine family), hintfull looks very good.

You meant Liberation? If yes, I will completely agree. Liberation is great with full hinting. And it is a great font overall.

...

With DejaVu hintslight looks better. For me, it was most noticeable with *monospace* fonts. I'd be very interested to hear your results with BYTWCODE_BW_MAX_PIXEL=1 (and then run 'fonts-config').

I think this will not affect all applications. What is actually needeed is this patch: https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/89177 and a patch to fonts.conf -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Ilya Chernykh

18:25

On Monday 24 October 2011 21:28:38 Graham Anderson wrote:

...

Sub-pixel rendering is _not_ enabled by default (note that antialiasing and sub-pixel rendering are not the same thing), and should be properly enabled for the freetype package. Once sub-pixel hinting/rendering is properly enabled, hintslight should be the default hinting mode. Hintslight with sub pixel rendering properly addresses any blurriness of smaller point sizes, renders crisp text and avoids the mangling of typehint enabled fonts.

The first thing a new user should see on booting openSUSE is a desktop with crisp clean fonts, we certinaly don't have that right now :(

Sub-pixel hinting needs that the feature to be anabled in two files Xresources and fonts.conf. This will affect the most applications. Neither of them have subpixel hinting enabled in openSUSE 12.1. I just do not know why. Possibly, some patent issues, or there are people who are against subpixels. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Takashi Iwai

22:08

At Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:25:27 +0400, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

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On Monday 24 October 2011 21:28:38 Graham Anderson wrote:

...
Sub-pixel rendering is _not_ enabled by default (note that antialiasing and sub-pixel rendering are not the same thing), and should be properly enabled for the freetype package. Once sub-pixel hinting/rendering is properly enabled, hintslight should be the default hinting mode. Hintslight with sub pixel rendering properly addresses any blurriness of smaller point sizes, renders crisp text and avoids the mangling of typehint enabled fonts.

The first thing a new user should see on booting openSUSE is a desktop with crisp clean fonts, we certinaly don't have that right now :(

Sub-pixel hinting needs that the feature to be anabled in two files Xresources and fonts.conf. This will affect the most applications. Neither of them have subpixel hinting enabled in openSUSE 12.1. I just do not know why. Possibly, some patent issues, or there are people who are against subpixels.

It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem. And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors. So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*. Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Ilya Chernykh

22:15

On Tuesday 25 October 2011 02:08:52 Takashi Iwai wrote:

...

...
Sub-pixel hinting needs that the feature to be anabled in two files Xresources and fonts.conf. This will affect the most applications. Neither of them have subpixel hinting enabled in openSUSE 12.1. I just do not know why. Possibly, some patent issues, or there are people who are against subpixels.

It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem.

The majority of displays now are LCDs.

...

And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors.

So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*.

It has been done in Ubuntu for a long time and I did not see much people who hates Ubuntu fonts out there. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Takashi Iwai

25 Oct 25 Oct

11:38

At Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:15:04 +0400, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

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On Tuesday 25 October 2011 02:08:52 Takashi Iwai wrote:

...
...
Sub-pixel hinting needs that the feature to be anabled in two files Xresources and fonts.conf. This will affect the most applications. Neither of them have subpixel hinting enabled in openSUSE 12.1. I just do not know why. Possibly, some patent issues, or there are people who are against subpixels.

It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem.

The majority of displays now are LCDs.

This doesn't justify to *break* something working now.

...

...
And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors.

So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*.

It has been done in Ubuntu for a long time and I did not see much people who hates Ubuntu fonts out there.

How do you know? There are lots of people who hate Ubuntu :) Actually, the system installation may be a bit more clever. We can detect the monitor at the installation time, and it'd be possible to know whether the subpixel rendering is enabled or not. Of course, this is apart from the patent issues. I don't know whether the subpixel patent was expired. I do know the bytecode-interpreter patent was expired. (And Ubuntu tends to ignore any patents intentionally as tradition.) Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Stefan Dirsch

11:50

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 01:38:30PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:

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At Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:15:04 +0400, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

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On Tuesday 25 October 2011 02:08:52 Takashi Iwai wrote:

...
...
Sub-pixel hinting needs that the feature to be anabled in two files Xresources and fonts.conf. This will affect the most applications. Neither of them have subpixel hinting enabled in openSUSE 12.1. I just do not know why. Possibly, some patent issues, or there are people who are against subpixels.

It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem.

The majority of displays now are LCDs.

This doesn't justify to *break* something working now.

...
...
And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors.

So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*.

It has been done in Ubuntu for a long time and I did not see much people who hates Ubuntu fonts out there.

How do you know? There are lots of people who hate Ubuntu :)

Actually, the system installation may be a bit more clever. We can detect the monitor at the installation time, and it'd be possible to know whether the subpixel rendering is enabled or not.

Of course, this is apart from the patent issues. I don't know whether the subpixel patent was expired. I do know the bytecode-interpreter patent was expired.

Exactly. But people always mix up both patents. :-(

...

(And Ubuntu tends to ignore any patents intentionally as tradition.)

Sure, they are located in a weird country to be able to do this. Sigh. Stefan Public Key available ------------------------------------------------------ Stefan Dirsch (Res. & Dev.) SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Tel: 0911-740 53 0 Maxfeldstraße 5 FAX: 0911-740 53 479 D-90409 Nürnberg http://www.suse.de Germany -------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -------------------------------------------------------------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Frederic Crozat

11:54

Le mardi 25 octobre 2011 à 13:38 +0200, Takashi Iwai a écrit :

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At Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:15:04 +0400, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...
On Tuesday 25 October 2011 02:08:52 Takashi Iwai wrote:

...
...
Sub-pixel hinting needs that the feature to be anabled in two files Xresources and fonts.conf. This will affect the most applications. Neither of them have subpixel hinting enabled in openSUSE 12.1. I just do not know why. Possibly, some patent issues, or there are people who are against subpixels.

It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem.

The majority of displays now are LCDs.

This doesn't justify to *break* something working now.

...
...
And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors.

So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*.

It has been done in Ubuntu for a long time and I did not see much people who hates Ubuntu fonts out there.

How do you know? There are lots of people who hate Ubuntu :)

Actually, the system installation may be a bit more clever. We can detect the monitor at the installation time, and it'd be possible to know whether the subpixel rendering is enabled or not.

Of course, this is apart from the patent issues. I don't know whether the subpixel patent was expired. I do know the bytecode-interpreter patent was expired. (And Ubuntu tends to ignore any patents intentionally as tradition.)

LCD subpixel is disabled by default upstream. See upstream opinion at http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freetype/2006-09/msg00064.html However, on its website, freetype states : "The colour filtering algorithm of Microsoft's ClearType technology for subpixel rendering is covered by patents. Note that subpixel rendering per se is prior art; using a different colour filter thus circumvents Microsoft's patent claims." -- Frederic Crozat SUSE -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Ilya Chernykh

12:16

...

...
...
It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem.

The majority of displays now are LCDs.

This doesn't justify to *break* something working now.

I think only a tiny percent of openSUSE users use CRTs. Appealing to the arguments about market share we should decide whether we should bar introduction of modern technology in favor of a tiny minority that still uses old displays.

...

...
...
And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors.

So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*.

It has been done in Ubuntu for a long time and I did not see much people who hates Ubuntu fonts out there.

How do you know? There are lots of people who hate Ubuntu :)

I am one of them. Nevertheless, Ubuntu has been extensively praised for good fonts. I have many times seen arguments by users that they choose Ubuntu because it has good fonts out of the box, unlike openSUSE. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Takashi Iwai

12:47

At Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:16:09 +0400, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...

...
...
...
It's because the subpixel rendering is only for LCDs. On other displays (or when setting a wrong value), it causes a problem.

The majority of displays now are LCDs.

This doesn't justify to *break* something working now.

I think only a tiny percent of openSUSE users use CRTs. Appealing to the arguments about market share we should decide whether we should bar introduction of modern technology in favor of a tiny minority that still uses old displays.

Still, it doesn't justify to *force* the setup. You can't break what was working. If you break, it's called a bug. Actually I'm not against to enable it if it's legally OK. But it should be enabled in a more smart way, e.g. via the hardware detection, etc. Statically enabling it sounds wrong.

...

...
...
...
And, some people do hate the subpixel rendering pretty much, as it leaves some artificial colors.

So, it's still risky to enable it *as default*.

It has been done in Ubuntu for a long time and I did not see much people who hates Ubuntu fonts out there.

How do you know? There are lots of people who hate Ubuntu :)

I am one of them. Nevertheless, Ubuntu has been extensively praised for good fonts. I have many times seen arguments by users that they choose Ubuntu because it has good fonts out of the box, unlike openSUSE.

Basically the deformed font rendering is a bug of autohinter. Honestly speaking, it's pretty counter-productive to discuss which hintstyle to choose just because of the bug. We should go to the direction to fix the bug, ideally together with the upstream. And, if Ubuntu does something black magic that isn't the upstream default, we should try to push it to the upstream first. thanks, Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Ilya Chernykh

12:57

On Tuesday 25 October 2011 16:47:26 you wrote:

...

...
I think only a tiny percent of openSUSE users use CRTs. Appealing to the arguments about market share we should decide whether we should bar introduction of modern technology in favor of a tiny minority that still uses old displays.

Still, it doesn't justify to *force* the setup. You can't break what was working. If you break, it's called a bug.

I think this principle is too rarely used in Linux world. Anyway, is not dropping support for old hardware is just dropping support rather than a bug? Just look at Linux kernel etc. Also note that here discussed only changing the defaults, and not dropping the support for CRTs completely.

...

Actually I'm not against to enable it if it's legally OK. But it should be enabled in a more smart way, e.g. via the hardware detection, etc. Statically enabling it sounds wrong.

I doubt this is possible before the 12.1 release.

...

...
I am one of them. Nevertheless, Ubuntu has been extensively praised for good fonts. I have many times seen arguments by users that they choose Ubuntu because it has good fonts out of the box, unlike openSUSE.

Basically the deformed font rendering is a bug of autohinter. Honestly speaking, it's pretty counter-productive to discuss which hintstyle to choose just because of the bug. We should go to the direction to fix the bug, ideally together with the upstream.

And, if Ubuntu does something black magic that isn't the upstream default, we should try to push it to the upstream first.

As I know, they just have the subpixel rendering enabled, unlike other distros which were fearing the patent threat. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Takashi Iwai

13:14

At Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:57:50 +0400, Ilya Chernykh wrote:

...

On Tuesday 25 October 2011 16:47:26 you wrote:

...
...
I think only a tiny percent of openSUSE users use CRTs. Appealing to the arguments about market share we should decide whether we should bar introduction of modern technology in favor of a tiny minority that still uses old displays.

Still, it doesn't justify to *force* the setup. You can't break what was working. If you break, it's called a bug.

I think this principle is too rarely used in Linux world.

What about video projectors?

...

Anyway, is not dropping support for old hardware is just dropping support rather than a bug? Just look at Linux kernel etc. Also note that here discussed only changing the defaults, and not dropping the support for CRTs completely.

And changing the default statically *breaks*. This shouldn't happen. No matter whether it's kernel or not.

...

...
Actually I'm not against to enable it if it's legally OK. But it should be enabled in a more smart way, e.g. via the hardware detection, etc. Statically enabling it sounds wrong.

I doubt this is possible before the 12.1 release.

Oh, was this a discussion about 12.1? Then better to forget :) The situation about patent is unclear, likely pretty gray...

...

...
...
I am one of them. Nevertheless, Ubuntu has been extensively praised for good fonts. I have many times seen arguments by users that they choose Ubuntu because it has good fonts out of the box, unlike openSUSE.

Basically the deformed font rendering is a bug of autohinter. Honestly speaking, it's pretty counter-productive to discuss which hintstyle to choose just because of the bug. We should go to the direction to fix the bug, ideally together with the upstream.

And, if Ubuntu does something black magic that isn't the upstream default, we should try to push it to the upstream first.

As I know, they just have the subpixel rendering enabled, unlike other distros which were fearing the patent threat.

Yeah, so like codecs, etc... Takashi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Petr Gajdos

26 Oct 26 Oct

13:05

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 03:14:37PM +0200, Takashi Iwai wrote:

...

...
I doubt this is possible before the 12.1 release.

Oh, was this a discussion about 12.1? Then better to forget :) The situation about patent is unclear,

No from my side. Petr

Felix Miata

25 Oct 25 Oct