FreeType 2.7 Bringing DirectWrite/ClearType-Like Rendering -- Much Better Looking Fonts On Linux

[Cerberus]

Configuring FreeType through FontConfig is pretty easy. I recommend looking at the Archlinux wiki page for FontConfig. If you want more OSX-like rendering, you can dial back the hinting. If you want more Windows-like rendering, you can dial up the hinting. The distributions all distribute the same software, the configuration is often different. Arch Linux will get the new FreeType versions faster.

Ubuntu has specific patches to various libraries, I never managed to get the same look on Arch Linux and its derivatives without installing Ubuntu patched libraries, I dont know if they are still around in the repositories. Infinality was decent but not completely on par with Ubuntu.

[microcode]

It seems I'll be sticking with version 2.6.5 for some time. I can't stand modern fonts and how they're rendered, I get dizzy looking at them for more than 10 minutes. Then only thing I can stand is the old MS core fonts, the ones that were "beaten into the pixel grid" as that mailing list post puts it. Anything else is either way too blurry or color-fringes like crazy, usually both. Windows has a utility to configure ClearType, but that doesn't help at all when then options are "bad", "worse", "even more worser" and "the worsesest".

The 2.6.5 mode is still available in 2.7. You just need to configure it to the old way. The easiest way is to set the environment variable FT2_SUBPIXEL_HINTING to 0. If you want the Infinality mode, it is now part of mainline FreeType 2.7, and your configuration doesn't have to change.
I encourage you to give it a shot, I think you'll actually like what it looks like, even if you don't like the way they're describing it in the mailinglist.

I strongly advise against sticking with an old version of FreeType, as although the quality is very good; no normal software, especially a font handling library, is immune to security exploits.

[microcode]

Ubuntu and OSX have the best font rendering (system and web), but I hope this will improve fonts on Linux in general, I always stayed away from some distributions because of the awful fonts.

Configuring FreeType through FontConfig is pretty easy. I recommend looking at the Archlinux wiki page for FontConfig. If you want more OSX-like rendering, you can dial back the hinting. If you want more Windows-like rendering, you can dial up the hinting. The distributions all distribute the same software, the configuration is often different. Arch Linux will get the new FreeType versions faster.

[Gusar]

It seems I'll be sticking with version 2.6.5 for some time. I can't stand modern fonts and how they're rendered, I get dizzy looking at them for more than 10 minutes. Then only thing I can stand is the old MS core fonts, the ones that were "beaten into the pixel grid" as that mailing list post puts it. Anything else is either way too blurry or color-fringes like crazy, usually both. Windows has a utility to configure ClearType, but that doesn't help at all when then options are "bad", "worse", "even more worser" and "the worsesest".

[microcode]

Better than, worse than, or equal to Infinality?

It's less aggressive than Infinality, and in my opinion looks better. They made it configuration-compatible with the Infinality patches.

[xeekei]

Better than, worse than, or equal to Infinality?

[johnc]

dafuq? Fonts look awful on Windows, why would we want to bring that to Linux?

[buzzrobot]

I count myself as a font rendering obsessive, but I'm not really sure I want my Linux fonts to render like Windows fonts. Windows fonts rendering is second rate.

There are, I think, at least three different font rendering engines shipping with Win10, which is part of its problem.

[aksdb]

Hmm, I used to install gdipp or similar on Windows to have font rendering like Linux which looked much better imho. I guess I'll be in a strange position soon. Then again, FreeType is pretty configurable.

[Cerberus]

Ubuntu and OSX have the best font rendering (system and web), but I hope this will improve fonts on Linux in general, I always stayed away from some distributions because of the awful fonts.