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Date:      Sun, 7 Jan 2018 18:40:33 +0100
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Poor default fonts in Firefox
Message-ID:  <20180107184033.04b66209.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <20180107155832.GA84935@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>
References:  <slrnp47hdu.189a.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de> <20171227174525.cc1e9047.freebsd@edvax.de> <20180107155832.GA84935@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>

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On Sun, 7 Jan 2018 16:58:32 +0100, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> Polytropon:
> 
> > > You install a new FreeBSD machine with a graphics display, install
> > > the xorg and firefox ports on it, all default options, start browsing
> > > the web... and you see that some sites (e.g. http://www.bbc.com/news)
> > > are presented with pixelated fonts like something out of the 1990s.
> > > 
> > > What do you do?
> > 
> > You install the recommended font packages. :-)
> 
> Well, there is no such recommendation.

It is an "implicit recommendation" which is used so frequently
that nobody mentions itanymore . "If you want usable fonts,
then go ahead and install them!" ;-)



> > > My personal solution for the last few years has been to pinch
> > > OpenBSD's etc/fonts/conf.avail/31-nonmst.conf file...
> > 
> > This isn't needed as soon as the webfonts package has
> > been installed. And even the DejaVu fonts need to be
> > installed manually, if I remember correctly.
> 
> No, Deja Vu is a standard dependency:
>   x11/xorg
>   -> x11-fonts/xorg-fonts
>      -> x11-fonts/x11-fonts/xorg-fonts-truetype
>         -> x11-fonts/dejavu

Good to know. I don't know the exact dependency trees for
the different fonts and how they might have changed over
time, so maybe my assumption is no longer true.



> Installing webfonts does NOT fix the problem.  fc-match shows that
> popular font names like "Helvetica" and "Times" are still mapped
> to the same bitmap fonts as before and that's what you still get
> in Firefox.

Maybe there is a different problem: Maybe the page in question
supplies its own font, and this font just gets rendered in a
really terrible manner by the browser's font rendering engine?
There could also be a setting within the browser that handles
fonts (and prevents the correct usage of a font that is already
present on the system).

I don't have much experience in "pixel-perfect web publishing
as if it was a printed material", because I usually work with
printed material.




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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