I have been raging about the font rendering on Linux for years. It just sucks. Font has jagged edges and it looks very weird. I dual-boot with windows and the font there is very nice. So, I asked Claude ai to help me and it did a great job and my font is now is actually better than windows. I wanted to share it with everyone in case you have the same issue with the font on Linux.
Here it is:
- First, install required packages:
sudo pacman -S freetype2 cairo fontconfig
2. Install better fonts:
sudo pacman -S ttf-dejavu ttf-liberation noto-fonts ttf-roboto ttf-roboto-mono ttf-droid ttf-opensans ttf-hack ttf-fira-code
I have also installed Segoe ui and Segoe UI Variable fonts and that is what I'm using now.
3. Create or edit the font configuration file:
sudo mkdir -p /etc/fonts/conf.d
sudo nano /etc/fonts/local.conf
4. Add this configuration to local.conf:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit name="antialias" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="hinting" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
<edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
<edit name="lcdfilter" mode="assign">
<const>lcddefault</const>
</edit>
<edit name="embeddedbitmap" mode="assign">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<!-- Increase contrast slightly for all fonts This is not mandatory and can be commented out-->
<match target="font">
<edit name="weight" mode="assign">
<const>medium</const>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
5. Create a file for FreeType settings:
sudo nano /etc/profile.d/freetype2.sh
6. Add these export commands (I found it there already, but it was commented out. Just removed the "#"):
export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=40"
7. Enable subpixel rendering: (You might get a message that says "File exist", that's ok. It means it was already there)
sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
8. Clear and regenerate font cache:
fc-cache -fv
9. For better Java application fonts:
sudo pacman -S jre-openjdk fontconfig
10. Reboot
Additional optional steps: a. For better Firefox font rendering, in about:config: Set
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode
to 5 (This doesn't exist in FF. You create it, set it to "number" and give it a value of 5)
Set
gfx.webrender.all
to true
b. If you use VSCode, add to settings.json:
{
"editor.fontFamily": "'Fira Code, 'Droid Sans Mono', 'monospace'",
"editor.fontLigatures": true
}
Truly hope this helps someone. Share it with others if you think it will help them.
Thanks :)
And yet people at work will take its word when asking about things they don't know anything about beforehand and have no real way of fact checking without actually doing the research they are trying to avoid.