Re: [Devel] Help me understand this... I'm loosing my sanity. Please.

[Maurizio Colucci]

On Wednesday 09 April 2003 15:56, Vincent Caron wrote:

> RedHat 9 does not compile in the byte code interpreter due to the patent
> issue.
> The TrueType Debian maintainer (Anthony Fok) chose to compile the byte
> code interpreter a while ago. Today, I can testify that in my
> Debian/unstable the macro is defined in the libfreetype6-dev package.


Gosh. The opposite of what I guessed.
So how is it possible that redhat's rendering is better? 

I have uploaded some pictures showing the difference:

http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/luxi-mono-11-debian.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/luxi-mono-11-redhat.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/luxi-sans-11-debian.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/luxi-sans-11-redhat8.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/nimbus-roman-13-debian.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/nimbus-roman-13-redhat8.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/arial-10-debian.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/arial-10-redhat8.png
http://www.geocities.com/seguso2001/andale-mono-12-debian.png

Since we are using same distribution (debian unstable), could you be
so kind as to check if you have the same results?

> Now the question is : does the GTK and/or Qt font frontends (thus Xft2
> ?) invoke native or autohinting ? My guess is 'native' if present, auto
> otherwise. There is a per-distro configuration issue I guess.
>
> > 6. how can I know if the debian libfreetype6 package I am using
> > activates the byte-code interpreter? I DID read
> > /usr/share/docs/libfreetype6/README.Debian but there is no mention.
>
> $ grep -r BYTECODE /usr/include/freetype2
> /usr/include/freetype2/freetype/config/ftoption.h:  /* Define
> TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER if you want to compile   */
> /usr/include/freetype2/freetype/config/ftoption.h:#define
> TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER


On redhat 8, I have #undef, as you said.

But on debian, there is no /usr/include/freetype2!

But I have installed libfreetype6_2.1.4-1_i386.deb ...


> > 7. I noticed that redhat 8 sets the following resources by default:
> >
> > Xft.dpi:        96
> > Xft.hinting:    true
> > Xft.hintstyle:  hintmedium
> >
> > What do they mean? What reads them? Where can I find more info about
> > them?
>
> Xfd.dpi forces an arbitrary resolution for the output device (your
> screen). This is the unit that links 'points' and 'pixels'. Due to
> habits in the Windows and Mac world, it is preferable to use common
> values rather than the 'real' value (plug'n'play monitor can tell their
> physical resolution to your computer).
>
> For other fields, I guess you'll need to have a look at the Xft2
> documentation. I think that all you need to know about the great new
> unified (client-side, anti-aliased, <insert buzzword>) font rendering
> for X is here : http://fontconfig.org/


Thanks, that's what I wanted to know.

> > 8.  I can't see why in redhat 9, openoffice.org's menus are
> > antialiased, and in debian this is not the case. I don't know if the
> > problems are related, so I just thought to mention it.
>
> Could you check which library OpenOffice is using ? Run 'ldd' on the
> binary, Xft2 clients have a libXft.so.2 dependency for instance. You can
> compare with other binaries of course.

On both redhat and debian I tried: 

  $  ldd oowriter

but the answer was: "not a dynamic executable"

Thanks a lot for your info.
The problem of font ugliness is still unsolved though.
cheers,
Maurizio