[CentOS] my fonts look horrible (centos5.3/xfce)

[Filipe Brandenburger]

Hi,

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 17:22, Ryan Pugatch<rpug at tripadvisor.com> wrote:
> Should rpm -qi freetype show both my built version and the other one as
> well?

It shows the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions, that's why it shows it twice...

> I don't remember how I ended up with the slightly older verison, but I
> can try updating.

You should probably do that, although it will probably not change anything...

> There's got to be some setting I'm missing that makes the fonts look
> just a bit better, because I think they still look rough.

Yes, there is the font rendering settings (monochrome/best shapes/best
contrast/subpixel smoothing [LCD]), and smoothing, hinting and
subpixel order advanced settings.

You can set those by running the "gnome-font-properties" program
(included in the "control-center" RPM).

It's possible to do those settings manually by tweaking
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf or ~/.fonts.conf, but it's a XML file with
arcane syntax...

You can try to remove any ~/.fonts.conf if you have any and see if
that makes a difference.

HTH,
Filipe