Re: looking for old Linux Fonts

[Anatoly]

On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 15:52:51 +0200
serando <serando@sunrise.ch> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Please note:
> I do not want to use such modern technique like Anti-Aliasing. I think
> Anti-Aliasing is good for 4K monitors. But I have a 1280x1024 pixel
> LCD monitor. I know that most people use Anti-Aliasing on a 1280x1024
> LCD monitor. But I do not like it. I would rather have a crystal-clear
> writing with stairs than a light blurred font without steps.

Me too

> 
> I guess, most default Linux fonts nowadays seems not to look good
> without anti-aliasing, because they are anti-aliasing optimized.
> Right?

I think not really. Theres no such a thing like "anti-aliasing
optimization" but they just lack good hinting bytecode written by human.
If you don't want to antialias font character, you need a hinting
working very well to fit character lines nicely in low res pixel grid.

> So what can I do?
> I thought maybe I just can take the same default Linux fonts, but an
> older version of them. Hoping, that the older versions were designed
> before anti-aliasing was introduced and therefore look good without
> anti-aliasing.
> 
> So I have installed the following old versions of today's default
> Linux fonts:
> -Bitstream Vera Sans from year 2003
> -DejaVu sans from year 2006
> -Free sans from 2012
> -Liberation sans from 2011
> 
> To be sure that the fonts do not look ugly because they are badly
> hinted by freetype, but that it is really the font itself, that has
> bad letters, I copied these four fonts into a Windows system and
> looked at them there, with the windows hinting system.
> 
> Result:
> You can find the results as attachments. Some bad letters are marked
> with arrows.
> Liberation sans looks quite good. The other fonts are ugly, even in
> this older versions in windows.
> 
> What I am asking for:
> Since fonts are the main component that freetype deals with, I thought
> maybe you could give me a hint:
> I am looking for fonts (fontnames) designed for Linux that were
> default fonts before anti-aliasing was introduced.
> What were the names of them and where can I find this old default
> fonts?
> 
> Would appreciate an answer.
> Thank you.

I started to try linux distros is 2000. My primary desktpo OS is
FreeBSD since 2006. I've always wanted GPL,BSD,MIT-like licensed fonts
set that is really good on hinting, but I never found. 

But there is good fonts set from Microsoft that is
free to use and free to distribute if unmodified (Microsoft EULA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web
I think simplest way to find out working download links is to look at
actual FreeBSD "webfonts" port Makefile:
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/x11-fonts/webfonts/Makefile?view=markup
description is:
"This is a collection of high quality and free to use TrueType fonts
created by Monotype and Microsoft Typography.  It consists of the
following families:

      Times New Roman, Courier New, Georgia, Trebuchet MS, Comic
      Sans MS Arial, Arial Black, Verdana, Andale Mono, Impact,
      Calibri, Cambria, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel

They contain all 652 glyphs defined in WGL4 and are available in the
following encodings:

      ISO 8859-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 15
      KOI8-R and -RU

Tahoma can also be installed as an option, but a Windows License is
required."

In case if I absolutely can't tolerate something Microsoft related or
(more realistic cause) I'm too lazy to bother with that, my second
preference would be DejaVu
https://dejavu-fonts.github.io/
DejaVu maybe isn't prefect but good enough to me.

Also, it may be interesting to you to look at entire content of
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/x11-fonts/