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

[kpedersen]

This time however they leave us with no options at all, except sticking to older distros where the old font stack is still present.

I feel your pain but...

Gnome 2 users have had to do this a long time ago when the desktop regressed. No-one is really left to fight the good fight .

May I recommend RedHat Enterprise Linux 6 or 7? They keep old userland (i.e less broken crap) and yet along with Google, still manage to maintain an up-to-date Chromium unlike most other distros.

[Xaero_Vincent]

Some people absolutely need to work with documents created in Windows and your proposal no longer applies to them.

Software like LibreOffice will just say that the current font used in a document isn't available and automatically substitute it for the most similar installed alternative.

From what I can tell, besides games (where Wine/Proton come in handy), using Linux is really all about accepting and embracing (mainly FOSS) alternatives; Using alternatives like LibreOffice and Softmaker Office instead of Microsoft Office, GIMP and Krita instead of Photoshop, CoreCtrl instead of MSI Afterburner, balenaEtcher instead of Rufus... DejaVu Sans Condensed or Cantarell fonts instead of Tahoma, so on.

[lb90]

Hi, there's really much confusion going on here...

1) harfbuzz does not support hinting by design. Hinting does not work well with glyph animations and is pretty much useless on hidpi screens. I would like to point out that the browser do not support hinting neither! Does anyone complain about browsers font rendering? No: not supporting hinting is just fine. You don't get blurry fonts.
2) Yes, there's a bug in either Pango, Harfbuzz or Cairo affecting some fonts that needs to be addressed. That's the issue bird is having.
3) Pango still supports bitmap fonts
4) Behdad did not mean: "stick with blurry fonts", but rather: "stick with unhinted fonts", just like your browser does. Unhinted does not imply blurry.
5) please wait some time, people do not have to respond immediately. It's fine to wait days. Remember that people is doing much work in the meantime.

[caligula]

Over the past 20 years Linux users have adapted to

1) OSS -> ALSA -> Pulse Audio (soon to be replaced as well)

PA runs on top of ALSA for most users. Many programs also use PA via ALSA emulation layer. So it's ALSA -> PA -> ALSA emulation

[blueos]

closer to looking like Tahoma

Hey, do you realize how bad Pango is ?
Here is Tahoma with ClearType rendering :


Never trust google or facebook employees on technologie choices, just look at facts.

[Volta]

I love Linux for it's simplicity and it's principles, but this is why proprietary software will always win, because they care for what the users want.
I've been using Linux for 15 years and I work as a system administrator for a big IT company but after using Linux on my PC for some periods in the past I have decided to use it only for my personal servers.

I don't want to become an Apple fanboy just to have a clear desktop on my 1,500 dollars PC laptop.
Yes, it's free software and people choose how they spend their time contributing, but if I don't like it I won't use it.

Yeah, they also care about users privacy. /s Oh, they care about compatibility as well, so you don't have to buy new Mac to have newer OS. /s

[birdie]

Software like LibreOffice will just say that the current font used in a document isn't available and automatically substitute it for the most similar installed alternative.

From what I can tell, besides games (where Wine/Proton come in handy), using Linux is really all about accepting and embracing (mainly FOSS) alternatives; Using alternatives like LibreOffice and Softmaker Office instead of Microsoft Office, GIMP and Krita instead of Photoshop, CoreCtrl instead of MSI Afterburner, balenaEtcher instead of Rufus... DejaVu Sans Condensed or Cantarell fonts instead of Tahoma, so on.

Font substitutes often completely break formatting :-) And Microsoft Office users are notorious for creating badly formatted documents - some even use spaces to e.g. to center the text.

PA runs on top of ALSA for most users. Many programs also use PA via ALSA emulation layer. So it's ALSA -> PA -> ALSA emulation

More and more apps nowadays use PA directly. Let's see what I have: mpv (+), audacious (+), audacity (+), Firefox (+), Chrome (still ALSA probably) and that's it.

[mphuZ]

Linux style, guys.
Indeed, it is more profitable not to fill your brain with all sorts of nonsense and buy a Windows 10 license.

[remenic]

Hey, do you realize how bad Pango is ?
Here is Tahoma with ClearType rendering :


Never trust google or facebook employees on technologie choices, just look at facts.

Hey look, here is what it looks like on a properly configured system, using pango 1.44.7, harfbuzz 2.6.5.

https://i.imgur.com/sVfUBDa.png

Stop spreading lies.

[Volta]

Linux style, guys.
Indeed, it is more profitable not to fill your brain with all sorts of nonsense and buy a Windows 10 license.

Really? You're fooling us with this spyware? Not to mention it's full of nonsense in every of its part.

Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you the products we offer, which includes using data to improve and personalize your experiences. We also may use the data to communicate with you, for example, informing you about your account, security updates and product information. And we use data to help show more relevant ads, whether in our own products like MSN and Bing, or in products offered by third parties. However, we do not use what you say in email, chat, video calls or voice mail, or your documents, photos or other personal files to target ads to you.

M$ style at its best!