XFree86 Font De-uglification HOWTO
Prev |  | Next

# 4. XFree86 4.x

XFree86 4.0 introduced native support for TrueType fonts, along with other new features. The enhanced font support is based on xfsft from Juliusz Chroboczek, which in turn is based on the FreeType font library originally from Mark Leisher, so the configuration is similar to xfsft and Red Hat's patched xfs which use the same rendering engine. As of 4.0.2, XFree86 begins to support anti-aliasing which is a technique for smoothing font outlines (see section below).

The `FontPath` is still in `XF86Config`, as always. For Red Hat 6/7 using a stock XFree86 4.x (i.e. NOT the Red Hat 7.x supplied version), this will mean moving the Red Hat xfs `FontPath` from `/etc/X11/fs/config` back to `XF86Config`. A separate font server is no longer needed just for TrueType support. You may disable it, unless it is needed to serve fonts to other clients in a network environment. Or you may want to still use it since there may be a very small performance gain in some situations (at the cost of more memory utilized). See the section below for Red Hat 7.x specific configuration issues.

> ``

> Section "Files"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
> FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1"
> FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
> EndSection

In order to use TrueType, you must also specify which font `module` the X server should be using in the "Module" section:

> ``

> Section "Module"
> Load "freetype"
> Load "speedo"
> Load "type1"
> <load other modules....>
> EndSection

Note that there can be only one 'Module' section, so include any other modules here as well. Again, this is the kind of configuration that your distro should be doing during installation, and may not be necessary, unless you are upgrading, or want to make manual changes yourself.

You also must have a `fonts.scale` and `fonts.dir` file for each TrueType font directory, just like for xfsft and Red Hat's xfs (see Appendix). ttmkfdir, http://www.joerg-pommnitz.de/TrueType/ttmkfdir.tar.gz, will come in handy for `fonts.scale` if it is not already installed. See the Configuration section above for more details and examples.

`xtt` is another available TrueType module that is best known for supporting ideographic (Oriental) type fonts. You can use either, but only one at a time.

Most X server command line options are still the same as previous versions of X:

`$ startx -- -dpi 100`

## 4.1. Xft and Core Fonts

As mentioned, the new font handling improvements are the result of the development work behind Xft. Xft is an on-going effort to improve and modernize X's font handling. The end result will be radically different from the traditional X font handling (known as "core X fonts").

What we have now is essentially two different systems: one that has been around since the dawn of time (or even before :), and one that is radically new and still evolving! I emphasize this, since the "still evolving" part is likely to cause some confusion until the dust settles.

The initial release of Xft v1.0 with XFree86 4.0.2 is controlled by its configuration file, `XftConfig`. This changes with later versions, where the font configuration is handled by the fontconfig library, with its main configuration typically located `/etc/fonts/fonts.conf`. Of course, additional development has brought other improvements as well. For more on the Xft and Fontconfig, see the Fontconfig home page, http://fontconfig.org/.

What we, as end users, will notice and appreciate most, is the anti-aliasing support and other rendering enhancements we get from Xft. Though this is not the only benefit.

## 4.2. Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing is a technique for producing even smoother, crisper looking fonts by subtly softening the sharp, jagged edges. This has long been a feature of Apple and Microsoft font rendering, and is now making it's way into X via the X Rendering Extension specification. The new extensions provide other benefits as well. Distributions that support anti-aliasing with their stable/official versions are now being released.

That is the good news. The bad news is that not all drivers support anti-aliasing yet. This is a moving target, so you will have to dig around to find whether your chipset is supported or not. The recently released 4.2 should have near universal support. More not-so-good news is that not all applications are actually taking advantage of this yet. We will have to wait for the various toolkits (TK, Xaw, etc) to catch up. KDE is an exception, and has had strong AA support via the QT toolkit. The recently released GNOME-2, has AA support now too.

Anti-aliasing is not a cure-all, but is another piece of the font puzzle. Some point sizes may look better if not anti-aliased, and some systems just may not handle the various rendering enhancements as well as others.

If you are reading this long after the publication date (October 2002), hopefully most of these shortcomings will have been overcome. All hardware will eventually be supported, mainstream distros will have shipped releases that include the new extensions, and they will be enabled by default. Many apps will look better since they will be "AA" aware, and we won't have to jump through any configuration hoops just to make it work. In the meantime, read on ...

### 4.2.1. Requirements

Minimum requirements for Anti-Aliasing:

- XFree86 4.0.2 or later.

- You graphic card's driver has to support anti-aliasing. If 4.0.2 (or greater) is already installed, you can get this information direct from the driver with xdpyinfo. Run this and look for "Number of Extensions:". If this lists "RENDER" among them, then you should be good to go. If not, well, it isn't going to work, and you will have to wait for an updated driver.

- The Freetype2 library available from http://www.freetype.org, and also now bundled with XFree86. XFree needs to be linked against this, so install and build first if building from scratch. Your distro should have Freetype packages as well. Just make sure it is `freetype-2`.

- TrueType fonts are best for display purposes. Type 1 is also good, but may not render quite as well. See above sections.

- For KDE users, KDE supports anti-aliasing as of 2.x. This will require QT-2.3.0 or later, and built with Xft support. A nice font HOWTO from Troll Tech for KDE and QT can be found: http://trolls.troll.no/lars/fonts/qt-fonts-HOWTO.html.

  GNOME 1.x does not support anti-aliasing. GNOME 2.0 has recently been released and does have native support for anti-aliasing.

- Applications that "know" about anti-aliasing. Not necessarily at the individual application level, but the libraries and toolkits (GTK, TK, etc.) that the application are built against, must be able to use the new features. At this time, not all do. KDE/QT is first out of the box and has good support. Also, xterm (yes, xterm!) supports the new extensions. An interesting example scavenged off usenet:

          From torvalds@penguin.transmeta.com Sun Apr 28 02:09:28 2002
          From: torvalds@penguin.transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds)
          Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.x
          Subject: Re: X font recommendation
          Organization: Transmeta Corporation
          Lines: 24
          Message-ID: <aa4ijq$259$1@penguin.transmeta.com>
          Cache-Post-Path: palladium.transmeta.com!unknown@penguin.transmeta.com
          Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 21:10:18 +0000 (UTC)
          X-Trace: news.sjc.globix.net 1019596253 63.209.4.196 (Tue, 23 Apr 2002 14:10:53 PDT)
          NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 14:10:53 PDT

          In article <aa492r$7hc5u$2@ID-99293.news.dfncis.de>,
          William Park  <opengeometry@NOSPAM.yahoo.ca> wrote:
          >Peter Karlsson <root@localhost.localdomain> wrote:
          >> What's wrong with "fixed"? :-)
          >>
          >> xterm -sb -sl 10000 -fg yellow -bg black -geometry 120x40 -fn fixed -bc
          >
          >This will load the default 6x13 fonts, aka.
          >    -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
          >A bit too small, though it has correct proportions.  If there is bigger
          >size (8x16, 10x20, 12x24) of that fonts, then that would be ideal.

          If you like anti-aliased fonts, the command line I prefer happens to be

               xterm -geometry 100x40 -fa andale:size=11:charwidth=6

          I think that font is from the MS free fontpack.

          In order for it to work for you, you need to have the anti-aliasing
          truetype fonts working well, and probably a good monitor (and some
          people _hate_ that rounded look from anti-aliasing, and find it fuzzy
          even then).

                    Linus

  You might have to experiment with the `size` and `charwidth` values to get reasonable results.

- The new rendering extensions configuration file, `XftConfig`, must be configured for the fonts you want to use. Note that as of Xft2, this changes to `/etc/fonts/fonts.conf`.

- The new extensions supplant much of what we have been doing with font servers like xfs. `fonts.alias` and similar configuration files, for instance, are not used for fonts that are being controlled by the new extensions. Essentially, this gives us two separate font handling engines: the traditional, "core" font engine, and the new, Xft engine. The core engine is still used in some situations.

### 4.2.2. Installation

Keith Packard has a very brief summary of the steps required for building, installing and configuring from source at http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/render/aafont.txt. No need to reprint it here.

Newer distro releases are likely to have the foundation support for anti-aliasing available now. Red Hat, for instance, has it available as of Red Hat 7.1.

To verify the necessary components, first make sure the "freetype" module (and any others) are loaded. Check the X server output:

(II) LoadModule: "freetype"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/fonts/libfreetype.a
(II) Module freetype: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.0.3, module version = 1.1.9
Module class: XFree86 Font Renderer
ABI class: XFree86 Font Renderer, version 0.2
(II) Loading font FreeType

Then verify if the "RENDER" extension is available, either check with xdpyinfo, or check the X server log, typically `/var/log/XFree86.0.log`:

(II) Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM
(II) Initializing built-in extension XInputExtension
(II) Initializing built-in extension XTEST
(II) Initializing built-in extension XKEYBOARD
(II) Initializing built-in extension LBX
(II) Initializing built-in extension XC-APPGROUP
(II) Initializing built-in extension SECURITY
(II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA
(II) Initializing built-in extension XFree86-Bigfont
(II) Initializing built-in extension RENDER

If "RENDER" is there, anti-aliasing and the other advanced rendering extensions should be available. If not, the system should gracefully fall back to the core X fonts engine.

### 4.2.3. Xft Configuration (XftConfig)

By Danny Tholen `<obiwan@mailmij.org>`

Xft is an interface to the freetype rasterizer written by Keith Packard, member of the XFree86 Project, Inc. It allows applications to use fonts from the new X render extension using a unified font naming scheme. In `/etc/X11/XftConfig` (or `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XftConfig`) you will find a configuration file which can be adapted to suit your personal taste. In this section I will explain the syntax and demonstrate some things you can do with this file.

The following information is based on 4.0.3. 4.1 is just released, and there may be a few new wrinkles not touched on here. Future versions are sure to bring even more radical changes.

Note that Xft2 makes radical changes to Xft configuration. `XftConfig` is obsoleted and replaced by the new fontconfig libraries. Red Hat 8.x users should read the Red Hat 8.0 Differences section first. Many of the principles described still apply, but the configuration is radically different. FYI.

#### 4.2.3.1. XftConfig Structure

The basic structure revolves around a 'pattern'. A pattern is a set of name/value-list pairs, each value-list contains one or more typed values. A certain application requests a font, for example:

``

family: "Arial"
size: 12
encoding: "iso8859-1"

A size 12 arial font in latin-1 encoding. The Xft extension will now try to patch this pattern to all of the fonts available in the system. And selecting the one with the best score. Before the matching is done Xft looks in `XftConfig`. The requested pattern can here be extended before use. An example is:

``

match any family == "Arial" edit antialias = true;

This will enable anti-aliasing for all fonts of the family Arial.

Also, the X server is queried to list all of its fonts; the XLFD contains just enough information to match fonts roughly.

Here's a list of attributes used in matching fonts (in priority order, this may not be up to date anymore!):

``

foundry font foundry (string, like "monotype")
encoding font encoding (string, like "iso8859-1")
spacing font spacing (integers or proportional (0), mono (100),
charcell (110))
bold is the font bold? (boolean)
italic is the font italic? (boolean)
antialias is the font anti-aliased? (boolean)
family font family (string)
size font size (double)
style font style (string, like "Bold Italic")
slant font slant (roman, italic, oblique)
weight font weight ( integers or light, medium (100), demi-bold,
bold, black)
rasterizer not yet used (probably "TrueType", "Type1", ...)
outline are outlines available? (boolean)

#### 4.2.3.2. XftConfig Syntax

- ### dir

  Adds a directory to the list of places Xft will look for fonts. There is no particular order implied by the list; Xft treats all fonts about the same.

- ### include and includeif

  Cause Xft to load more configuration parameters from the indicated file. "includeif" doesn't elicit a complaint if the file doesn't exist. If the file name begins with a "~" character, it refers to a path relative to the home directory of the user. This is useful for user-specific configurations.

- ### match edit

  If a pattern from an application matches the pattern after "match", it is edited with the instructions in `edit`. The pattern match is done as follows:

  match `qual FIELD-NAME COMPARE CONSTANT`

  where qual is either `any` (matches one specific font) or `all` (matches all fonts). An example:

  ``

  match all foundry==¨monotype¨

  which will match (and edit) all fonts belonging to the foundry "monotype".

  ``

  match any family==¨arial¨

  will match (and edit) one specific font with the family name "arial".

  `FIELD-NAME` is any one of the properties found in the above section Structure, or additionally:

  ``

  pixelsize font size in pixels (integer)
  charspace character space (integer)
  minspace minimal spacing (integer)
  rgba color hinting (string ¨rgb¨ or ¨bgr¨ and
  vertical hinting ¨vrgb¨ ¨vbgr¨), aka sub-pixel hinting
  xlfd x server font (string, type xlsfonts to
  see a list of your xlfd strings)
  file the font file (string)
  core use X core fonts? (boolean)
  render use render fonts? (boolean)
  index I have no idea what this does:)
  scalable is the font scalable (boolean)
  scale scale the font (integer)
  charwidth character width (integer)
  charheight character height (integer)
  matrix no idea (not really at least)

  `COMPARE` can be `<`, `>`, or `==`.

  `CONSTANT` is the value of the field-name in the appropriate type (see above section Structure).

  You can use multiple matches before you use the "edit" statement:

  edit `FIELD-NAME ASSIGN EXPR SEMI`

  Where `ASSIGN` can be one of `=`, `+=` or `=+`. With `=`, the matching value in the pattern will be replaced by the given expression. `+=` or `=+` will prepend/append a new value to the list of values for the indicated field.

  `EXPR` sets the `FIELD-NAME` to a value.

  `SEMI` is a semicolon (`;`). You can use multiple instructions, separated by a semicolon. See below for examples if this is confusing.

#### 4.2.3.3. XftConfig Examples

And now I´ll try to list a few useful configurations and explain them. Note that it is configured for my system, and I may use different fonts than you, so try to adapt the examples to your own needs.

1. How do I make fonts available to Xft?

   List your Type 1 and TrueType font directories with "dir". On my system (Mandrake 7.2) this becomes:

   ``

   dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
   dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/drakfont"

2. How do I use a user specific XftConfig file?

   Put an `.xftconfig` file in your user directory and add:

   ``

   includeif "~/.xftconfig"

   to your standard `XftConfig`. This will enable a user specific configuration file, but it will not complain if there is no such file.

3. How do I make aliases for my fonts?

   I noted that my KDE console asks for "mono" fonts when it is looking for a fixed font. "console" is used when I select "linux" in the font menu of the KDE konsole. Therefore, I used two aliases for fonts which are also named "fixed":

   ``

   match any family == "fixed" edit family =+ "mono";
   match any family == "console" edit family =+ "mono";

4. Anti-aliasing my fonts are blurry and makes me dizzy!

   Although there is a big fuzz around AA in X, good fonts actually look better if they are not anti-aliased. The anti-aliasing blurs the fonts by adding gray pixels to the edges, and this may strain your eyes if you looking at them for a long time. (Your eyes will try to get the fonts sharper, which of course is not working because they are blurred;) However, for very small fonts, anti-aliasing may increase the readability of the fonts, because with sharp edges, there are too little pixels available for your mind to figure out what it means. And for bigger fonts, the edges become very jagged when not anti-aliased, so here you also might want to have aliased fonts. Of course you can also turn off the anti-aliasing for specific fonts. In other operating systems, most truetype fonts are not anti-aliased between 8 and 12 pixels, while only large Type1 fonts are anti-aliased.

   Use the following in your `XftConfig` to anti-alias only fonts of specific sizes:

   ``

   match
   any size > 8
   any size < 15
   edit
   antialias = false;

5. My fixed fonts do not appear or look _very_ wrong in the KDE konsole or similar programs!

   I noted that somehow a lot of fixed font do not tell Xft that they are fixed, and thus, mono spaced. Therefore only a part of the font is displayed. We can manually set the spacing for these fonts (this assumes you have fixed aliased with mono as in question 3 above):

   ``

   match
   any family == "mono"
   edit
   spacing = mono;

6. My Symbol, Webdings, etc. fonts do not show up!

   For some reason some (symbol) fonts are not correctly recognized, and Xft will show your default font, or a font which has the closest match (which is generally not what you mean at all). For Adobe Symbol and MS-webdings I did the following to get them working:

   ``

   match
   any family == "webdings"
   edit
   antialias = false;
   encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
   match
   any family == "symbol"
   edit
   antialias = false;
   encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";

   A useful way of figuring out these things is to activate debugging with:

   ``

   export XFT_DEBUG=1024

   This will generate a lot of output, especially if you have many fonts, because it lists the properties and scores of every font available. You can also use other values. For a nice summary of what happens (requested font, XftConfig substitutions, X server additions and the finally matched font), you can use XFT_DEBUG=2.

7. Why do my KDE programs start now soooo slooow?

   The Xft mechanism in XFree prior to 4.1 had to parse the `XftConfig` file each time a program was started. And the info of all these fonts had to be re-read. As of X 4.1.0, a cache is used and starting applications using Xft is much faster. Especially if you have many fonts this can be very useful. So, upgrading XFree86, and related packages, is a good idea.

8. I have a LCD screen on my laptop, can I use sub-pixel hinting instead of normal anti-aliasing?

   Yes you can. Sub-pixel hinting uses colors instead of gray pixels to do the AA. I do not have a LCD screen so I do not have any idea of how it looks but you can play with the "rgba" setting. Try:

   ``

   match edit rgba=bgr;

   or use rgb if you have a different type of monitor. For vertical AA you can try vbgr and vbgr.

9. My fonts still look bad!

   Good quality fonts are needed to start with. If you do not have some good TrueType fonts, it is worth it to go and look for them on the Internet. Other reasons why your fonts still look bad can be because of your build of freetype2. Snapshots versions before 2.0.2 were compiled with an option that had some patent issues. Therefore, the standard 2.0.2 and 2.0.3 compiles without this option. To fix this, download the freetype2 source rpm and change in include/freetype/config/ftoption.h line 314:

   ``

   #undef TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER

   to:

   ``

   #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER

   and rebuild with this modified source. See the freetype2 `README` file for details. Adobe Courier looks terrible on my system, so I made an alias so that Lucida console is displayed instead. If anyone can get it to display nicely I would appreciate knowing about it.

This is my `XftConfig`:

``

#
# XftConfig
#
# By: Danny Tholen
#
# Use with Type1 and TrueType fonts
#
dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/drakfont"
dir "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1"
#
# alias 'fixed' and 'console' for 'mono'
# (some programs ask for 'mono' if they mean 'fixed';)
#
match any family == "fixed" edit family =+ "mono";
match any family == "console" edit family =+ "mono";
#
#Check users config file
#
includeif "~/.xftconfig"
#
# Use TrueType fonts for defaults
# Danny: disabled
#match any family == "serif" edit family += "Times New Roman";
#match any family == "sans" edit family += "Verdana";
#
# Use lucida console as default fixed type font
# and set the spacing of "mono" to 100, this
# fixes broken fonts which are fixed, but do not
# set mono-spacing.
match
any family == "mono"
edit
family += "lucida console";
spacing = 100;
#
# Alias between XLFD families and font file family name, prefer local fonts
#
match any family == "Charter" edit family += "Bitstream Charter";
match any family == "Bitstream Charter" edit family =+ "Charter";
match any family == "Lucidux Serif" edit family += "LuciduxSerif";
match any family == "LuciduxSerif" edit family =+ "Lucidux Serif";
match any family == "Lucidux Sans" edit family += "LuciduxSans";
match any family == "LuciduxSans" edit family =+ "Lucidux Sans";
match any family == "Lucidux Mono" edit family += "LuciduxMono";
match any family == "LuciduxMono" edit family =+ "Lucidux Mono";
#
# TrueType font aliases
#
match any family == "Comic Sans" edit family += "Comic Sans MS";
match any family == "Comic Sans MS" edit family =+ "Comic Sans";
match any family == "Trebuchet" edit family += "Trebuchet MS";
match any family == "Trebuchet MS" edit family =+ "Trebuchet";
match any family == "Monotype" edit family =+ "Monotype.com";
match any family == "Andale Mono" edit family += "Monotype.com";
match any family == "Monotype.com" edit family =+ "Andale Mono";
# Danny:
# set the AA for different fonts
#
# most TT fonts do not need to be aliased between
# 8 and 15 points, although this might be a matter of taste.
match
any size > 8
any size < 15
edit
antialias = false;
# Danny: Courier looks terrible, and I
# cannot get most characters to fit nicely
# in their space. So I use courier 10 pitch
match
any family == "courier"
edit
family += "courier 10 pitch";
# these are symbols, and for some reason this needs to be added!:
match
any family == "webdings"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "symbol"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "Standard Symbols L"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "dingbats"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "Cursor"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
# maybe arial looks better like this?:
match
any family == "Arial"
any size > 7
any size < 15
edit
antialias = false;
# end

### 4.2.4. GTK and GNOME

As mentioned above, KDE and QT do have solid anti-aliasing support with recent releases. GNOME-2 has just recently been released as of this writing (as of Aug 2002), and does have support for anti-aliasing, though is not in widespread use (yet).

There is also the gdkxft project available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gdkxft/. This will add anti-aliasing support to GTK+ 1.2 applications (only!). This is a stand-alone library and not a patch. It will only effect GTK+ 1.x widgets (many of them but not all). There are some limitations, but mostly it works as advertized. Read the included `README` closely, and follow the instructions. An initial installation provides a good starting point. I added some font families to `/etc/gdkxft.conf` and I used some of Danny's suggestions above, and it seems to work mostly. It's a bit of a kludge, but quite a nice kludge ;-) Note, sadly this project seems to be no longer maintained.

There is also a couple of ways to get this working with Mozilla! On the same page above is a replacement library that can be substituted for the Mozilla library of the same name. Just a drop in replacement. But, this did not work here (on Red Hat 7.2), it segfaulted. But building Mozilla from source with the patch listed, did indeed work nicely! This step requires gdkxft to be working as well. So it's a two step process to get Mozilla working, but worth the effort if you want the best looking pages IMHO. There are also development versions of Mozilla available from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/experimental/xft/ that have Xft/TrueType support (see the section on Mozilla below). Native Mozilla Xft support is probably working its way into mainstream releases. [Note: This should happen with Mozilla 1.2.]

### 4.2.5. Afterword

You've gone through all the steps, and verified that the "RENDER" extension is available, but you don't perceive a difference? Well, maybe the applications themselves just aren't there yet, and are not able to utilize these new features. Netscape, for instance, is not able to take advantage of anti-aliasing.

So how to know what does and does not make use of anti-aliasing? A quick test is to use something like xmag, or gimp, and enlarge the text considerably. Look for diagonal lines, and if they are clearly stair-stepped with no softened edges. If so, then while anti-aliasing is technically available, it is not being used. With anti-aliasing you should see gradients instead of well defined sharp edges. You can compare this with xterm and "AA":

`$ xterm -fa charter -fs 14`

You can also turn on Xft debugging:

``

$ export XFT_DEBUG=2

Then start apps from that same terminal. This will tell if anti-aliasing is active for each font as its processed. This also gives some insight into how Xft understands font names and other details.

One final point: anti-aliasing and TrueType are completely separate issues. One does not depend on the other, though both together can can enhance appearance significantly. Especially, with good quality TrueType fonts! But any font can potentially be anti-aliased.

## 4.3. Red Hat 7.x and 8.x Differences

### 4.3.1. Red Hat 7.x

Red Hat 7.0 introduced some changes to X configuration over previous Red Hat versions. It is also different from the stock XFree86 configuration as addressed above. Notable differences:

- Both XFree86 3.3.6 and 4.x are included. If upgrading you may wind up with 3.3.6. The X configuration file is `XF86Config` for 3.3.6 and `XF86Config-4` for 4.x. Of course, you'll need to know which is which for editing and configuration purposes.

- xfs is still handling all font duties. A default Red Hat 7.x installation does not use the 'modules' section of XF86Config-4 for font handling. Instead it relies on xfs, which has this capability built in. This is different from a stock installation of XFree86 4.x where the X server does all the font work -- including TrueType.

- The socket for xfs is "unix/:7100" with RH 7.x, as opposed to "unix/:-1" in previous versions (i.e. Red Hat 6.x).

- As of Red Hat 7.1, the xfs init script actually runs mkfontdir and ttmkfdir on font directories known to xfs. So this step is not necessary when new fonts are added. Just restart xfs.

### 4.3.2. Red Hat 8.0

Red Hat 8.0 still includes XFree86 4.2, but it includes some significant changes! It is not clear at this time whether these are running changes to 4.2, or Red Hat has ported changes that are scheduled to appear in the soon to be released XFree86 4.3. Noteworthy changes:

- XFree86 3.3.6 is no longer bundled.

- `XF86Config-4` is deprecated in favor of `XF86Config` (X still uses the former if available though).

- The next generation of Xft is now used: Xft2! This means significant changes to font configuration, i.e `XftConfig` is no longer used in favor of `/etc/fonts/font.conf`, which is now an xml document (with much of the same functionality). See man fontconfig, and fc-cache.

- The preferred location for fonts is now `/usr/share/fonts/` and `~/.fonts/`. The system will automatically recognize, and include, any fonts (including TrueType) in these locations. See `/etc/fonts/fonts.conf`.

- Red Hat 8.0 of course includes GNOME-2, which has native anti-aliasing support for GTK apps.

- The xfs font server is still being used.

Prev | Home | Next
TrueType Fonts |  | Adjusting Fonts in Specific Applications