/closed

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba"><const>rgb</const></edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting"><bool>true</bool></edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"><bool>true</bool></edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="autohint"><bool>false</bool></edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle"><const>hintslight</const></edit>
 </match>
</fontconfig>

Dramatic improvement, especially for small fonts. 

So in this case, hinting here is true but autohint is false, that's a little confusing.  I suppose this means we specifically want "hintslight" which someone decided looks the best.

so here's how it works: the system looks first in your home directory for a file named

.fonts.conf

. Then it looks for a file called

/etc/fonts/local.conf

.

...<snipped>....

Wow - thank you Crazybilly for a terrific explanation of what is going on. NOW I have a clear handle on why I am seeing the mangled mess that I have currently! :-)

Open the file .fonts.conf and just delete any lines it has. Now reopen it and copy and paste one of the examples above into the file and save.

Now press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X (you will have to relogin etc, so save any data beforehand).

WHAOH WHAOH!
aparently you dont remember the heated battle that took place here a few weeks ago about CTRL+ALT+BKSP being removed from crunchbang?

xdpyinfo | grep resolution

To change the DPI, make sure xrandr is installed and run (just change the number):

xrandr --dpi 96 &

The setting isn't permament though.

.fonts.conf

. Then it looks for a file called

/etc/fonts/local.conf

.

The file in your home directory is given preference--whatever's in there is applied. The system then says "Ok, so for these other settings...does the file in /etc say anything about those?"

The trick is that no matter what user you log in as, it always falls back to /etc/fonts/local.conf (to add that text, open /etc/fonts/local.conf in a text editor. You'll have to do that from the command line--since it's a system file, you'll need to use administrator privileges to edit it. Try:

gksu gedit /etc/fonts/local.conf

That should let you edit the file. Then just paste that text in to the end of the file. That SHOULD do it.)

The idea is I can set font rendering the way I think looks good, and so can my wife. We each have our own

.fonts.conf

in our own home directories.

What's not written in each file falls back to the settings in /etc.

So if you want to change things for everybody who ever might use the system, change the file at

/etc/fonts/local.conf

. If you just want to change YOUR settings, change

.fonts.conf

in your home directory.

When I was new to Linux, I tended to edit the system file (because I was pretty much the only user on my laptop). But the 'Linux way' to do it is to make the edits in your home dir. And here's why:

When you go to change distros or upgrade to Jaunty or whatever, you can backup pretty much all the config files in your home dir. Then if Jaunty's (or whatever distro you try) font rendering sucks, or whatever, you can just copy the old

.fonts.conf

file over to your new home directory and suddenly all the tweaking you're doing right now will be applied.

And that'll work on (almost) any distro you try out. It's not a hard and fast rule, of course, but anytime there's programs shared between distros, they're usually configured the same way. Which means the config file in your directory has all your tweaks in it. So you're good to go.

How's that for a long-winded response that probably doesn't quite answer your question? :D

Oh and yes I do have font smoothing.