Fix/configure Linux font rendering

Article published on:5 November 2008, 20:38

One of the most common issues on Linux is font rendering. Usually the Arial font renders really badly, especially if you use Gnome and you try KDE/Qt applications (for example Opera).

Gnome and KDE use fontconfig to render fonts, but both use different settings. As such, if you pick your Gnome-based distro, you usually have problems with KDE/Qt, and vice-versa.

The Appearance properties (gnome-appearance-properties) allows you to nicely change the font rendering options. You can also manually adjust these settings using the gconf-edit tool, just go to the /desktop/gnome/font_rendering preference keys.

KDE has it's own appearance properties, but usually Gnome users don't know which one it is, and they don't want to install the entire KDE package.

To adjust the font rendering options for KDE/Qt applications, here's what you need to know. You can create a per-user ~/.fonts.conf file, or you can set system-wide settings by editing /etc/fonts/fonts.conf (and/or /etc/fonts/conf.d).

Download my .fonts.conf file. Just save this in your home folder and restart your KDE/Qt applications. I use the same settings in Gnome.

I do not recommend you to edit the /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file. However, you can still adjust global settings by changing the symbolic links in /etc/fonts/conf.d. I did that myself.

Please read man fonts.conf for more details.

Note: you might not like my font rendering configuration, because it also depends on your monitor and screen resolution. Please adjust the settings as needed.

Published in: configuration, fonts, gnome, kde, linux, qt.