The Latest Pango + HarfBuzz Is Leading To A Messy Font Rendering Situation For Some

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Latest Pango + HarfBuzz Is Leading To A Messy Font Rendering Situation For Some

You may recall towards the end of last year when the Pango layout engine library dropped support for bitmap fonts, causing frustrations among some users. There now appears to be another Linux font debacle brewing...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=HarfBuzz-Hinting-Woe

[coder]

"That's what we decided not to support anymore. You can try to get used to the "blurry" rendering. Or you can find something else to use, or whatever. You are using Free Software you realize, right?"

Free software, indeed. I hope people switch to a fork spawned before all of this nonsense went down.

It would be interesting at least to know what motivated these changes. Not that it would probably change anything. Perhaps some bean-counter did some profiling and figured out that Facebook was spending a few $M/year on server-side font rendering.

[Candy]

Linux is clearly the wrong choice for many people.

[coder]

Perhaps some bean-counter did some profiling and figured out that Facebook was spending a few $M/year on server-side font rendering.

Hmm... well, it seems that dude is a MBA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behdad_Esfahbod

Given his work on HarfBuzz, I suppose it was a given that he'd want Pango to use it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarfBuzz

[coder]

Linux is clearly the wrong choice for many people.

Huh?

Free software means freedom to fork or even switch libraries, when one turns in a bad direction. Free software can accommodate all kinds of people, working in all kinds of directions. If there's something counter-productive going on, there are more options for dealing with it than with closed-source.

[cynic]

Font management on "the linux desktop" (whatever it mean) as always been a bit messy.

I guess it is time for systemd-font-renderd

[birdie]

To quote myself, "I'm literally crying and shivering right now". I've always thought of myself as a really invested and rational Open Source lover and the net result is, "If it's free, you have to eat crap or beat it". I've had a lot of ups and downs in regard to Linux progress over the past +20 years but this day is by far the worst by a large margin.

[CochainComplex]

Huh?

Free software means freedom to fork or even switch libraries, when one turns in a bad direction. Free software can accommodate all kinds of people, working in all kinds of directions. If there's something counter-productive going on, there are more options for dealing with it than with closed-source.

..the closed source solution use the same but pay more

[birdie]

Thank you Michael for letting everyone know about the issue. Very much appreciated! Really.

Linux is clearly the wrong choice for many people.

Maybe. It's the second time in a row that Gnome/RH developers mandate the usage of high DPI screens with Linux moving forward. This time however they leave us with no options at all, except sticking to older distros where the old font stack is still present.

[stormcrow]

"That's what we decided not to support anymore. You can try to get used to the "blurry" rendering. Or you can find something else to use, or whatever. You are using Free Software you realize, right?"

Not any more. Attitudes like this is what pushed me back to Microsoft Windows & Apple on the desktop/mobile. I have work to do, don't have time coddling toxic free software egos that break or remove significant compatibility features simply because their narrow personal use doesn't include it.

The only thing I use free software for any more is file servers where the software stack is significantly smaller and generally backed up with support dollars.