Why do the fonts in KDE keep shrinking over time? This is not just in Fedora 15, but has affected Fedora in general for many years.
A few weeks ago, I was using font size 12. Then, 12 shrank, so I increased the standard system font size to 13. Recently, it shrank again, so last night I increased my system font size to 14.
Why does one continually have to choose a larger font size to maintain a constant font size?
On 06/30/2011 10:23 AM, Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
Why do the fonts in KDE keep shrinking over time? This is not just in Fedora 15, but has affected Fedora in general for many years.
A few weeks ago, I was using font size 12. Then, 12 shrank, so I increased the standard system font size to 13. Recently, it shrank again, so last night I increased my system font size to 14.
Why does one continually have to choose a larger font size to maintain a constant font size?
Does dpi stay constant?
xdpyinfo |grep resolution
-- rex
Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
Rex Dieter wrote:
Does dpi stay constant?
xdpyinfo |grep resolution
Yes.
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
Ok. Maybe last night's size adjustment did make them a bit larger than before. But not the other time. And this has definitely been a fedora issue since years, although I have never reported it.
On 2011/06/30 09:42 (GMT-0600) Petrus de Calguarium composed:
Rex Dieter wrote:
Does dpi stay constant?
xdpyinfo |grep resolution
Yes.
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
That's probably because DPI was forced. Most displays are something other than 96, though some are close. If you force DPI to be accurate at each install, then you'll be more likely unbothered or less bothered by font size changing from release to release.
In F15 what may be bothering you is a change of system font family. The problem is that physical size and nominal size are not consistent among font families, meaning that F15 left the default nominal size untouched, but changed the family to one of different (smaller) physical size. Your fix in the current case may be as simple as choosing the same font family as last used, unless what you have now is actually what you prefer.
If your display's actual DPI is less than 96, it's best to leave it inaccurate (pinned to 96). Many apps and web pages get pretty ugly when DPI is not 96, but the impact is worst when less than 96.
Felix Miata wrote:
That's probably because DPI was forced.
According to the manufacturer's handbook for my monitor, the native resolution is 96x96, so I don't see why it should be forced. Back in the days, a few years ago, when we had to have xorg.conf to get our displays working properly, I always appended -dpi 96 to the X-Server line in kdmrc.
In F15 what may be bothering you is a change of system font family.
No. I am using Liberation.
If your display's actual DPI is less than 96, it's best to leave it inaccurate (pinned to 96).
Also, force fonts dpi is not recommended, according to the KDE help tip. I used to set it to 96dpi, but when I read that a year or so ago, I stopped forcing the font dpi. I never noticed a difference, since my hardware dpi is 96 anyway.
Felix Miata wrote:
In F15 what may be bothering you is a change of system font family.
The system font family didn't change in F15. Only gnome-shell defaults to Cantarell. For everything else, the default is still DejaVu.
What changed is that the bytecode interpreter is now enabled by default. See also: https://kevinkofler.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/hint-how-to-force-autohinting-o...
Kevin Kofler
Kevin Kofler wrote:
The system font family didn't change in F15. Only gnome-shell defaults
to
Cantarell. For everything else, the default is still DejaVu.
What changed is that the bytecode interpreter is now enabled by
default.
This could explain why I have seen some differences in the past.
I am surprised that DejaVu and Cantarell are the default fonts, since it is Liberation that was especially created by Red Hat. Why is Liberation not used?
On Friday, July 01, 2011 02:48:56 AM Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
Kevin Kofler wrote:
The system font family didn't change in F15. Only gnome-shell defaults
to
Cantarell. For everything else, the default is still DejaVu.
What changed is that the bytecode interpreter is now enabled by
default.
This could explain why I have seen some differences in the past.
I am surprised that DejaVu and Cantarell are the default fonts, since it is Liberation that was especially created by Red Hat. Why is Liberation not used?
Because of Cantarell is Gnome upstream's font.
R.
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Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
I am surprised that DejaVu and Cantarell are the default fonts, since it is Liberation that was especially created by Red Hat. Why is Liberation not used?
Liberation was designed to be metrically compatible with M$ fonts, not to be a default font family for the GNU/Linux desktop.
Kevin Kofler
Kevin Kofler wrote:
Liberation was designed to be metrically compatible with M$ fonts,
not to
be a default font family for the GNU/Linux desktop.
I see.
I was a longtime holdout and refused to use Liberation until about 3 weeks ago, when I learned of the link in /etc/fonts/conf.d that could cure the horrible, spindly font problem. At that time, for the first time in all of these years, I decided to not use DejaVu and switched to Liberation. Although my initial complaint was that Liberation fonts are more compressed, while DejaVu is more expanded, making it more legible, I now *do* like Liberation.
Do you know which, DejaVu or Liberation, has the fullest UTF-8 coverage?
Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
Although my initial complaint was that Liberation fonts are more compressed, while DejaVu is more expanded, making it more legible,
That's a necessary consequence of matching the metrics of Arial resp. Times New Roman.
The goal there was that you could replace the proprietary fonts with Liberation fonts in word processor documents without breaking the layout of the document. Incompatible metrics would defeat that purpose.
Do you know which, DejaVu or Liberation, has the fullest UTF-8 coverage?
Definitely DejaVu. Coverage is one of their main goals, if not THE main goal. Liberation is newer (so had less time to achieve high coverage) and focuses primarily on metric compatibility.
Kevin Kofler
Kevin Kofler wrote:
The goal there was that you could replace the proprietary fonts with Liberation fonts in word processor documents without breaking the layout of the document. Incompatible metrics would defeat that purpose.
I've been using Liberation for the browsers, after I had heard that. I used to have problems with DejaVu extending past the boundaries of boxes, getting chopped off or overwritten by other text.
Do you know which, DejaVu or Liberation, has the fullest UTF-8 coverage?
Definitely DejaVu. Coverage is one of their main goals, if not THE main goal. Liberation is newer (so had less time to achieve high coverage) and focuses primarily on metric compatibility.
Thanks. I switched my system font back to DejaVu. It's nice to have a reliable font that can display just about anything, without having to install gazillions of non-Roman font packages that you'll never use.
Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
Kevin Kofler wrote:
The goal there was that you could replace the proprietary fonts with Liberation fonts in word processor documents without breaking the layout of the document. Incompatible metrics would defeat that purpose.
I've been using Liberation for the browsers, after I had heard that. I used to have problems with DejaVu extending past the boundaries of boxes, getting chopped off or overwritten by other text.
Do you know which, DejaVu or Liberation, has the fullest UTF-8 coverage?
Definitely DejaVu. Coverage is one of their main goals, if not THE main goal. Liberation is newer (so had less time to achieve high coverage) and focuses primarily on metric compatibility.
Thanks. I switched my system font back to DejaVu. It's nice to have a reliable font that can display just about anything, without having to install gazillions of non-Roman font packages that you'll never use.
IIUC, the aliases:
Sans Serif Monospace
All point to DejaVu. But, I have no idea how to confirm this.
Neal Becker wrote:
the aliases:
Sans Serif Monospace
All point to DejaVu.
I just discovered this, too, a few days ago.
I was rooting around in /etc/fonts/conf.d, trying ot understand what is goingon there, when I noticed the tail ends of the following 3 files:
57-dejavu-sans.conf 57-dejavu-sans-mono.conf 57-dejavu-serif.conf
I cannot claim to explicitly comprehend the code, but at the end of each file, there is a Generic Name Assignment and Generic Name Aliasing section, which would appear to suggest that:
serif is an alias for DejaVu serif sans-serif is an alias for DejaVu sans-serif monospace is an alias for DejaVu monospace
Kevin Kofler wrote:
See also: https://kevinkofler.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/hint-how-to-force-
autohinting-on-fedora-15/
I read your article. I am a bit confused about BCI and autohinting. You say that BCI is to be preferred over auto-hinting and that BCI is automatically enabled in Fedora 15.
I had been plagued by wiry, spindly, thin fonts in Fedora for some time (is this BCI that is causing that?) and someone on this list suggested enabling auto-hinting by making a link in /etc/fonts/conf.d:
ln -s ../conf.avail/10-autohint.conf .
This has worked exceptionally! Yet you say that this has actually disabled BCI?
I am confused. So, BCI, the new, preferred and superior system, produces these horrible characters, while the less preferred auto- hinting system produces these breathtakingly sharp and readable fonts?
Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
I am confused. So, BCI, the new, preferred and superior system, produces these horrible characters, while the less preferred auto- hinting system produces these breathtakingly sharp and readable fonts?
Yes. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The BCI renders the DejaVu fonts the way DejaVu upstream wants them to look. (They explicitly recommend keeping the BCI enabled for their fonts.)
Kevin Kofler
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Felix Miata -
Jaroslav Reznik -
Kevin Kofler -
Neal Becker -
Peter G. -
Rex Dieter