[Pkg-fonts-devel] default screen fonts.

[rdxijn at yandex.ru]

09.04.10, 15:21, "Rogério Brito" <rbrito at ime.usp.br>:

>  > First, there is still no droid fonts, which are good and have been
>  > already included in Ubuntu.
>  
>  I did not know about those Droid fonts, but they seem to be developed by
>  Ascender Corporation.  I just now saw that they are under the Apache
>  License, version 2.0 (as seen http://www.droidfonts.com/licensing/).
>  
>  Just from a quick view, I could not find any links to download them
>  (only via the android SDK?).
>  
>  Our archive has, OTOH, the package ttf-wqy-microhei, said to be derived
>  from the Droid fonts.

This is said to be CJK , so it has another spacing between letters, which 
looks bad in European languages.  And again what stops developers to
include original droid fonts in Debian? They seem to have free license and
are very good. 

>  > Second, there is no default meta-package which will set most common
>  > desktop font free replacements, such as arial, helvetica, times,
>  > courier and others, to make them both readable and not far from
>  > original.
>  
>  It is not clear to me what you mean here: fontconfig-config contains
>  
>  	/etc/fonts/conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf
>  	/etc/fonts/conf.avail/30-urw-aliases.conf
>  
>  Aren't those sufficient?

No. Actually hinted fonts should be used on screen and PS only for printing.
It is very strange to mess every thing in one place. 

>  > Also some fonts matched are not optimal for screen rendering, for
>  > example helvetica matched as nimbus sans which is ugly on low dpi, or
>  > if bitmap fonts are enabled, helvetica will match bitmap.
>  
>  I guess that the problem here would be the hinting, not the metrics.
>  What about changing the autohinting on/off?  The bytecode interpreter
>  (for truetype fonts) can also have an effect here.

bytecode interpreter as far as i know is good only with ms fonts, and requires
build time configuration in freetype. And in general some fonts are just
bad on low dpi.

>  And what about the liberation fonts? Do they make a good match in your
>  experience? 

In iceweasel liberation sans sometimes look too small, droid sans are much 
better and more readable. In general normal and big liberation fonts are 
very good.

>  > So it is good to have package, that will make everything as best as
>  > possible. This make web pages and .odf documents made on other oses
>  > both readable and closer to original design by default.
>  
>  I'd guess that the URW fonts would be metric-equivalent, wouldn't they?
>  I have not yet checked their kerning, which can have an effect on
>  document exchange.

Maybe. But documents also should be readable. in Ubuntu as far as i remember
they don't use urw as default for arial and times. 

>  > And there is now way to turn on/off improved sub-pixel. It is enabled
>  > in qt4 and disabled in gtk/cairo.
>  
>  Does qt4 links to fontconfig (I'd guess so, but...) and respects
>  settings in your local ~/.fonts.conf ? I don't know: I don't use any
>  desktop environment. You can also take a look at
>  
>  	/etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-no-sub-pixel.conf

Sorry, but i have no qt4 apps installed. But it is about two different types of
subpixel, the new one also know as improved subpixel hinting.  Selection
between them in gtk is only possible installing patched libcairo for new one
and keep default cairo for old one.