Fedora 16 Alpha is released today, featuring GNOME 3.1.4 with a unified input indicator for keyboard layouts and input methods, KDE 4.7, GRUB 2 on new installations (with GPT disk labels) and several other major changes. You can download it now. Remember to read the important information in the release notes and common bugs page.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-09-01
Member since:2007-12-26
Member since:2009-07-10
There are subjective preferences and there is bad rendering. Ubuntu, OSX and Windows 7 render the fonts differently, but with good quality. The font rendering I see on my screen with Fedora 16 alpha is just wrong. This has nothing to do with taste, it's objectively inferior to Ubuntu. Maybe it's a problem with the alpha version, I haven't compared it with previous Fedora releases.
Member since:2011-02-10
I highly doubt that it is _extremely_ subjective area.
The font rendering is important(consider moving from XP to Fedora) and you will see the font difference.
What people missed about font rendering is not about BEAUTY where subjectivity applies, as you've said. It is about how the system properly displays the font without overlapping characters, the system must handle this properly so that it is easier for the user to read regardless of the beauty, and Linux desktop failed to address this. Yes the default font is readable enough, but it is still fall short of what fonts should be.
Try to replace your fonts via appearance and look at the characters on your desktop especially terminal, and you will see the ugly fonts.
Ubuntu at least have tried to address this, and I like their ubuntu fonts more than the liberation fonts or anything Fedora provides.
Member since:2009-08-18
Member since:2010-03-08
Here's an interesting read about "ugly" font rendering.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html
Basically, there is no proper font rendering on a screen, only compromises. People who are used to the Apple approach (visual correctness) will think it looks better, people who are used to the Microsoft approach (crispness and readability) will think it looks better, etc...
GNOME 2 allowed you to choose which rendering algorithm you prefer, which was a nice touch even though the dialog was confusingly worded. Don't know if the feature is still there in GNOME 3
Edited 2011-08-24 07:26 UTC
Member since:2008-03-17
Member since:2005-07-06
... Not sure that this is the issue your hitting, but there's an issue with auto-hinting on some display / GPU configuration that makes Fedora 15 fonts look horrible on some machines (I hit it on my Laptop, but not on my workstations... go figure).
The solution is quite simple:
Create a file name 99-autohinter-only.conf in /etc/fonts/conf.d.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
Not sure if it works on F16 (I've yet to try it).
- Gilboa
Edited 2011-08-24 07:30 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Cue Fred Sanford like heart attack claims whenever someone mentions text files and simple in the same sentence...
I've definitely seen the weirdness you're talking about though. On my system Fedora's got some of the best font rendering out of box of any OS I've seen. On my coworker's laptop it looks godawful by default until one applies the hinting change.
As for the people whining about the base font itself, you could, you know, take the two clicks or so and change it to one you prefer. It's not like we're in the dark old days of hand configuring X11 with Type 1 fonts
Oh, and the font hinting settings are accessible through Gnome-Tweak-Tool. Should be in the F16 repos if it's not installed by default
Edited 2011-08-24 13:33 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Well, what that does is disable the bytecode interpreter and use autohinting only. It's a wonderful example of the subjectivity of font rendering, in fact. Here's the history.
The freetype autohinter is a workaround for the fact that bytecode interpretation (reading special instructions that come with a font which tell you how to hint it, essentially) was patented. Fedora is serious about known patents, so Fedora prior to F15 disabled freetype's bytecode interpreter and used autohinting only.
One of the #1 'fix Fedora's ugly font rendering' "tips" for Fedora 14 and earlier was to install a modified freetype package which enabled the bytecode interpreter.
Since F15 the patent on the bytecode interpreter is dead, so Fedora's freetype ships with the bytecode interpreter enabled. Autohinting is only used for fonts which don't have a bytecode. Now, one of the #1 'fix Fedora's ugly font rendering' "tips" is how to configure freetype to use the autohinter all the time - i.e. the precise opposite of the old "tip".
Need any more proof that this is an utterly subjective area? 
Member since:2005-09-10
Install the infinality patches and you will have the best font rendering in the industry. http://www.infinality.net/blog/
Member since:2009-08-18
You will need the infinatlity RPMS to fix it.
http://www.infinality.net/fedora/linux/
unfortunately Fedora 16 is not supported yet (still being alpha) ... but this should fix font rendering for Fedora.
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Member since:
2009-07-10
I tried Fedora 16 today, because I was really dissapointed of Ubuntu with it's crappy Unity experiment, unresponsive desktop, audio and wireless problems. With Fedora as a desktop it doesn't matter if it's Gnome 1, 2, 3 or Unity. The font rendering is so amazingly f--ked up it's unusable anyway. Is anyone using this crap as desktop OS, really? Gives me eye and brain cancer. Tomorrow I'll try Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome Shell.
Edited 2011-08-23 22:49 UTC