From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1R8Ll6-0007fe-Gw for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:42:57 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D53DA21C1BA; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:42:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B4AD21C038 for ; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:41:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 00EC91B400D for ; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:41:50 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new using ClamAV at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -3.002 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.002 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.403, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id ETR0fRKcn9WQ for ; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:41:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B7811B4008 for ; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:41:39 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1R8Ljq-0000Ta-Ip for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:41:34 +0200 Received: from athedsl-375613.home.otenet.gr ([79.131.19.59]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:41:34 +0200 Received: from realnc by athedsl-375613.home.otenet.gr with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:41:34 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: Nikos Chantziaras Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: FreeType unpatented auto-hinter? Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:41:09 +0300 Organization: Lucas Barks Message-ID: References: <4E809692.7050005@nileshgr.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: athedsl-375613.home.otenet.gr User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:6.0) Gecko/20110920 Thunderbird/6.0 In-Reply-To: <4E809692.7050005@nileshgr.com> X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: 13c969bdb1c80e0e00ed515c69029045 On 09/26/2011 06:13 PM, Nilesh Govindarajan wrote: > Somebody on twitter told me that Ubuntu uses a special patch for > freetype that improves font rendering manifolds. > > So I rebuilt freetype with these useflags: +auto-hinter +bindist When you emerge freetype, it tells you at the end that the bindist USE flag does not longer control the auto-hinter. Also, as another poster mentioned, this is no longer an issue. The patent expired so the auto-hinter is no longer required. > What is the difference between this unpatented auto hinter and the > TrueType BC interpreter? The main difference is that the auto-hinter doesn't take into account the font's hinting instructions, resulting in non-optimal hinting. In short: don't use it. For best looking fonts, disable both the "auto-hinter" and "bindist" USE flags. The bindist USE flag controls the subpixel-rendering algorithm, which is still patented by Microsoft in the USA. So for best results (which is what Ubuntu uses), you need the BC interpreter (you get that by disabling the "auto-hinter" flag) and the subpixel renderer (by disabling the "bindist" flag).