Default font settings in Ubuntu

[Constantine Evans]

Alex Jones wrote:
> Hi List
> 
> I propose two changes to the default font settings in Ubuntu.
> 
>      1. Disable hinting so that fonts maintain their original shape
>      2. Enable colourised anti-aliasing, with David Turner's patches
>         applied (pre-made packages available at
>         <http://diego.aureal.com.pe/fonts/> courtesy of Diego Escalante)

I don't believe that this is the correct place to propose such changes.
Such proposals are generally made as specifications on launchpad, though
I will admit that after the devel/devel-discuss split the devel-discuss
mailing list has been used for many matters that I believe are not
appropriate to the list and should be dealt with in launchpad or sounder.

> After an infinite amount of fiddling with my monitor's settings, the
> best result was just to set them to default and use the filtered
> unhinted fonts.

Those are the best settings for your monitor only.

> Please take a look at two screenshots of an email I have linked for
> your analysis.
> 
>       * RGB Unhinted:
>         <http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/5867/filteredunhintedsm0.png> 
>       * Greyscale Hinted:
>         <http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/8472/greyscalehintedfq8.png> 

The RGB Unhinted version still looks terribly fuzzy, while the Greyscale
Hinted version looks crisp and clean, with better shapes as well. This
is the same experience I've had with fonts on my system. I have used
unhinted fonts for a few days, and still strongly believe that they look
far worse than the hinted version. My monitor is a 124 dpi LCD, and I
believe that many of these differences in opinion may be due to
difference in the dpi of various screens.

Sincerely,
Constantine Evans