Feature changed by: Stanislav Baiduzhyi (baiduzhyi) Feature #317952, revision 3 Title: Change default font to liberation sans openSUSE Distribution: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Carlos Bessa (cjpb) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: The default font for openSUSE is Sans Serif pt9. Frankly, it's not a good looking font. It's too horizontally spaced and looks flattened. This is actually something that really does not bother me as it's probably the first thing I change after installation (using openSUSE since 10.3). However, I often try live cds from other distros just out of curiosity and development releases from openSUSE as well. And every time I do that I wonder why openSUSE doesn't look at elegant/polished as the others by default... and it's just the font. And whether we find it important or not, aesthetics will make a big impression on a new user who is running a livecd of doing a test install. I don't want to switch to some weird, exotic font just for personal preference. I propose the default font to be changed to Liberation Sans. Looks much nicer, elegant and I find it very easy on the eyes. I've took 2 screenshots to illustrate the differences: https://plus.google.com/photos/107904119870484573131/albums/6065712696460612... best regards, Carlos Bessa Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: Looks better. Causes a better impression on new users. + Discussion: + #1: Stanislav Baiduzhyi (baiduzhyi) (2014-10-03 11:13:20) + Oh no please don't do that. Liberation fonts are badly antialiased and + badly hinted. The best way to fix the fonts would be to invent some + possibility to ship freetype with subpixel antialiasing enabled, and + use it where necessary. + Carlos, I understand the issue and I've been fighting with fonts for + some time, so here are my findings, hopefully you'll find them useful: + Here are couple of RPM packages, that is freetype with subpixel support + enabled, if you're using LCD display it will make your fonts look way + way better: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7j7XkcAA4-MU21tR2cwS1FPT3c&usp=sharing + (https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7j7XkcAA4-MU21tR2cwS1FPT3c&usp=sharing) + Unfortunately that is patented technology, so openSUSE cannot ship it with the + distribution not to upset US government, or something like that. + In addition, the font you've mentioned, "Sans Serif", it is not a font + but alias to some other font. I do not know which font is the default, + but I found the way to change it. You'll see file named '00-custom- + prefer.conf', open it, it is a standard XML file and you can tune your + preferences however you like it, adding or moving different font + families up or down. So setting "Sans Serif" to "Liberation smthng" is + just a matter of adding liberation on top of sans-serif preferences. + Afterwards copy that file into /etc/fonts/conf.d, and say "Ta-da" after + reboot. + Also you may be interested in file 99-custom-hinting.conf, that's + simplified hinting-antialiasing configuration. Change dpi from 82 to + whatever yor real display dpi is, then experiment a bit with hintstyle, + my favourite is hintslight but on some monitors it doesn't look good, + hintmedium looks better. + Also I would recomment you to try "DejaVu Sans Condensed" but it badly + supported for some reason, so to use it you have to delete non- + condensed one, go to /usr/share/fonts/truetype and delete all + DejaVuSans-*.ttf without word "Condensed" in it. It will give you much + narrower font, similarly to liberation, but with better shaped glyphs. + So I agree that openSUSE default fonts do not looks good, but + Liberation is one of the ugliest fonts out there, even ubuntu and droid + fonts are better. Please do not enforce your personal preferences onto + other users. + I would better suggest you change this request to: * add UI for those + family preferences to YaST (they say work is already in progress for + this). * split DejaVu fonts rpm into multiple rpms, Mono, Sans, + SansCondensed, Serif, SerifCondensed, because most of UI libraries + cannot use Condensed one if normal is present, or so it seems. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/317952