Let’s be honest: font rendering on Linux tends to suck. Take a look at a Web page using Firefox on Mac OS X, and then look at the same page using the same browser on a Linux machine. Mac OS X make fonts look sharp, clear, and easy to read. Heck, even Windows coaxes fonts to look decent by leveraging Microsoft’s ClearType technology, while the same fonts on Linux look thin and pathetic. You’ve probably been looking at those emaciated Linux fonts so long that you don’t even realize how bad they really are.
There is, however, a better way. Yes, it is possible for you to make your Linux fonts beautiful, so readable that words literally pop out of your monitor! Utilizing a technology known as sub-pixel font rendering, Linux fonts will look as good as, or even better, than those on Mac OS X.
In this article, you’re going to learn how to implement the technology, not how it works. If you really want the gory details about the technology behind sub-pixel font rendering, check out Wikipedia’s article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering.
There’s one caveat, however: this technique only works on LCD displays. If you’re still using a cathode-ray tube monitor… well, LCDs are getting cheaper every day.
There are two steps you need to perform. The first is the same for both KDE and GNOME, while the second depends on…
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