[Fontconfig] TTF fonts etc.

[Enrique Perez-Terron]

On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 00:28, JB wrote:
> I'm no newbie linuxuser but I've had this problem (well 
> it's not really a problem, just a thing that annoys me a 
> lot) for all my years of linux usage and have never been 
> able to fix it. How do I get truetype-fonts to look exactly 
> as good as they do in MS Windows? I've read many guides, 
> tried many different "solution" but TT-fonts always look 
> bad in some way or another. 

I believe the reason might be the patent issues with the 
hinting bytecodes interpreter.

> Let's say I have just installed linux (slackware 9.1),  
> the latest XFree86 and fontconfig 2.2.0 (all clean installs) 
> and haven't configured anything or done anything else with 
> my linuxbox. Where do I go from here? Tthe fonts look scaly 
> and weird from start and websites don't look as good as they 
> do in Windows. I just want the fonts to look "right". 
> 
> Can anyone explain to me how to do this?

You can download freetype sources and compile them with 
the bytecode hinter turned on, provided you have a license
from Apple, or a valid reason why you don't need one.

You can read more about the issue at 
http://www.freetype.org/patents.html.

Enrique