How I do fonts in Puppy

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Wolf Pup
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#21 Post by Wolf Pup »

liberation fonts - metric-compatible with Monotype Corporation's Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New.link

Liberation Sans - Arial
Liberation Serif - Times New Roman
Liberation Mono - Courier New

liberation_fonts_ttf-0.2

md5sum
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erikson
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#22 Post by erikson »

On my pcPuppyOS pendrive (under /usr/share/fonts/default/TTF/), I simply have put symbolic links to the Verdana and Tahoma fonts on my WinXP hard disk (under c:/WINDOWS/Fonts/, mounted as /mnt/hda1/WINDOWS/Fonts/).

Lo and behold! IceWM and Thunderbird see and use these fonts, even with correct point sizes.

Next, OxygenOffice swriter (as included in pcPuppyOS) has a lot of built-in fonts, but (to my taste) few if any are suitable for documents with a "professional" look.

Now I created a sample document with MS Word under WinXP, using various popular "windows" fonts (arial, verdana, tahoma, times new roman, courier new, trebuchet). When I open this doc in OxygenOffice swriter (included in pcPuppyOS), lo and behold! the fonts show correctly, and I can even edit text using these fonts.

Ninety percent of my Puppy font concerns are solved ;-)
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erikson
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#23 Post by erikson »

I'm trying to follow SHS's instructions, including the compilation. It will be my first Linux compilation, wish me luck!

Concerning bash, he says...
... but apparently that link is dead (Error 404).

Googling for alternative bash-3.1 sources, I find a forum thread dated 2006-Jul-09
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=9262
wherein is mentioned...
The command:
bash --version
should report:
GNU bash, version 3.1.0(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
I'm running very recent Puppy versions (Puppy 3.01 seamonkey and pcPuppyOS 3.01rc6) and both report...
# bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.00.16(1)-release (i486-t2-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Now my questions.

- If it's known since Jul 2006 that bash 3.1 is needed, why are new distribs still using lower versions? Is there anything wrong with bash 3.1?
- Would it be okay to use bash 3.00.16(1) as included in Puppy 3.01?
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Colonel Panic
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#24 Post by Colonel Panic »

Good thread, I intend to give the ideas in the OP in particular a try soon.

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Colonel Panic
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#25 Post by Colonel Panic »

It worked! The desktop looks way better now. Many thanks to Sit Heel Speak for his post.

Next stop; adding the same fonts to Abiword. I expect there's a thread for that somewhere.

astrogreek
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#26 Post by astrogreek »

I had a look at the screenshots by the OP (the "before" and "after"), and my reaction was:"You have got to be kidding! All that and so little improvement?"

Sorry to say it, but text looks far better on my Windows XP than they do in your screenshots.

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Sit Heel Speak
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#27 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

It helps to appreciate the beauty of these, if you are looking at a notebook LCD or a TFT flatpanel screen, and viewing at fullscreen in your image viewer (mtPaint or IrfanView).

Puppy 2.17.1 with one rxvt window chrooted into Gentoo.png

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view423.html

The actual page, so you can switch tabs and directly compare:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2 ... ew423.html

Still think it looks better in XP?

@erikson: Bash 3.1 is now available as a dotpet, use Puppy Package Manager.

tadatada
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god, too complicated

#28 Post by tadatada »

admiring you.

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Sit Heel Speak
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#29 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

An experiment:

Chinese fonts without my font tweaks (in "stock" Puppy 4.1-alpha-4, with the kai-pc.ttf font added-in and the short local.conf version given above, with "autohint" instead of "hinting" (in other words, using the standard Puppy capabilities):
http://i33.tinypic.com/1j6lj6.jpg

Chinese fonts with my full font tweaks (in Puppy 4.00-k2.6.25):
http://i35.tinypic.com/29w1tvm.png

I do not read Chinese, so cannot judge; would a native Chinese-speaker (reader) please look at both of these, and tell me if one or the other looks better?

astrogreek
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#30 Post by astrogreek »

Sit Heel Speak wrote:It helps to appreciate the beauty of these, if you are looking at a notebook LCD or a TFT flatpanel screen, and viewing at fullscreen in your image viewer (mtPaint or IrfanView).

Puppy 2.17.1 with one rxvt window chrooted into Gentoo.png

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view423.html

The actual page, so you can switch tabs and directly compare:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2 ... ew423.html

Still think it looks better in XP?
...
Sorry if I was bit harsh, and for the late reply. But yes, it looks much better in XP. I use a nice and sharp laptop LCD. I guess it depends a bit on the screen and personal preferences too. I installed the package by Deniros http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=26020 which made my fonts much nicer, but they are too heavy for me. Is there a way to make them lighter? I believe getting nice fonts that are easy to read is very, very important, otherwise people are going to switch back to Windows (or Mac). I did.

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Sit Heel Speak
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#31 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

astrogreek wrote:Dear SHS, my Buick looks way better than your Chevy...but I'm not going to post my own screenshot to tinypic.com so you can see...oh, and by the way, I'm using a Ford built by someone else, and it isn't quite satisfactory...can you tell me how to fix the Ford?
Must...control...tongue...of death...

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Sit Heel Speak
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#32 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

Upload a screen capture of your XP to tinypic, and post here the url, so I can see what I'm competing against...

***edited: I would especially like to see this page:

http://www.komonews.com/

whose webmaster seems fiendishly dedicated to continual refinement to make it ever more Vista-friendly and Linux-unfriendly...

***

PM me the /etc/fonts/local.conf that Deniros' package puts on your computer. Maybe improvements can be made there.
Last edited by Sit Heel Speak on Sun 10 Aug 2008, 21:46, edited 1 time in total.

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Sit Heel Speak
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#33 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

I should also here note, that the unpatented (i.e. default) autohinting of the newest libfreetype, in Puppy 4.1-alpha-5, is better than previous versions, actually pretty good; it's getting close to the point where there isn't enough difference between with and without my tweaks, to make the game worth the candle.

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bobnutfield
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Thank you for the beautiful fonts!

#34 Post by bobnutfield »

:D
Just followed your instructions, and wow, what a difference! Thank you. It makes the Puppy experience all the better!

Bob

astrogreek
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#35 Post by astrogreek »

Sit Heel Speak wrote:Upload a screen capture of your XP to tinypic, and post here the url, so I can see what I'm competing against...

***edited: I would especially like to see this page:

http://www.komonews.com/

whose webmaster seems fiendishly dedicated to continual refinement to make it ever more Vista-friendly and Linux-unfriendly...

***



PM me the /etc/fonts/local.conf that Deniros' package puts on your computer. Maybe improvements can be made there.
XP:http://i38.tinypic.com/11rb3f4.jpg
Puppy:http://i36.tinypic.com/2qwg208.jpg
Both from Opera 9.51.
I'll PM the file as soon as possible. Thanks! And again sorry about the slow response, I have been away.

astrogreek
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#36 Post by astrogreek »

Update: after doing a bit of searching and reading about Linux vs. Windows vs. Mac fonts, I realize that what fonts people like is highly subjective. I have seen example comparisons posted, where I find the Linux fonts horrible, while others have the opposite preference.
Ideally, I would like to be able to tune the font to my liking, like in Windows with the Cleartype tuning app.
In this image I prefer the "thinnest" font at the lower right:
http://i38.tinypic.com/9gx0ra.jpg

On the whole I like the fonts in Puppy very much, they are just a tad to heavy for me. But in Opera fonts look very bad. I tried a few tips to improve it, but that may have made things even worse.

disciple
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#37 Post by disciple »

IMO it is definitely best not to have any font smoothing for small fonts like you would use for normal on-screen display. The first thing I do when I have to use a Windows machine is hunt down all the different controls to turn off cleartype - in Windows, in Office, in IE. It's quite painful because they hide all the controls, and the ones in Office 2007 always seem to be in different places, but at least it lets my eyes stop screaming :)
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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ROOT FOREVER
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astrogreek
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#38 Post by astrogreek »

http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fontswh5.png

I think the non-cleartype is a bit too thin and blocky; the cleartype is just right; and my Puppy Opera fonts are waaaay too heavy.

Josef
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Re: Where to obtain good TrueType fonts

#39 Post by Josef »

Sit Heel Speak wrote:
Finally, you must tell Puppy that the new subdir exists. Open an rxvt window and issue the commands (do not omit the dot at the end of the middle three commands):

cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF
mkfontscale .
mkfontdir .
fc-cache -fv .
xset fp+ /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF

Now you have a very capable set of fonts.
I just copied my c:\windows\fonts folder into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF and followed your instructions above.
A few error messages came up, but however fonts look MUCH better now.

I must admit that your little tutorial was a bit intimidating since my linux knowledge is VERY low. I have bookmarked this thread to come back later when I have enough courage to follow the whole tut.

Thanks!

Josef

(I wonder why fonts in every linux distro I've tried look like shit)

disciple
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#40 Post by disciple »

FWIW Openoffice.org does use freetype... the problem is that it includes its own freetype (actually, 3.x may not... I can't remember; but it certainly did before). You can fix its font rendering by replacing its freetype with links to the system freetype.

I hope you get better soon SHS.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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ROOT FOREVER
GTK2 FOREVER

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