Fonts on Linux, Chapter Two: Improving freetype rendering

I have previously shown how to change default and fallback fonts with a user configuration.

The results are already very good. Nevertheless, I have adjusted the substitutions a little more now, and went through all files in /etc/fonts/conf.dto see what is what and if I can delete some, and uninstall some fonts. A leisurely thing to do in one or two hours...

One thing still disturbs: Sometimes I'm seeing significant color fringing (zoomed to 200%):
fringing

You can test for yourself here.

According to the archwiki, Subpixel Rendering is the solution. It requires compiling freetype2 with Microsoft's patented ClearType option enabled. Once again, the AUR has a package.

Continuing down the list, I check my dpi settings. Turns out it isn't so easy to calculate properly, but with the help of this excellent answer and my monitor's EDID, I found out that it's not the usual 96, but 99dpi! Back to the archwiki, I set the proper number in ~/.Xresources:

Xft.dpi: 99

Now log out/in, see what happens:
fringing better

That's definitely better.
Note that also the font dimensions have changed somewhat. I will have to live with the new dpi setting for a while to see if it is really better that way.

Freetype also has a config file in /etc/profile.d/freetype2.sh:

sh
# Subpixel hinting mode can be chosen by setting the right TrueType interpreter # version. The available settings are: # # truetype:interpreter-version=35 # Classic mode (default in 2.6) # truetype:interpreter-version=38 # Infinality mode # truetype:interpreter-version=40 # Minimal mode (default in 2.7) # # There are more properties that can be set, separated by whitespace. Please # refer to the FreeType documentation for details. # Uncomment and configure below #export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=40" export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35 cff:no-stem-darkening=1 autofitter:warping=1"

As you can see I already commented out the defaults and am now testing a different interpreter, together with a few more options I found in this file: /usr/include/freetype2/freetype/config/ftoption.h - I have no idea what these do, but I couldn't find any comprehensible or easily digestible documentation on freetype2 user configuration. So I just try it out and see what changes:
fringing better interpreter version 35
I can't see any difference to the previous result, so I comment that setting out again.

A monospaced font with ligatures?

See for yourself:
ligature noto sans mono ligature nimbus mono ps
(Noto Sans Mono, Nimbus Mono PS)

That doesn't make sense. I can only assume that I messed up somewhere when I was revisiting /etc/fonts/conf.d.

My system's default monospace font is Terminus, but Firefox rejects this font because it is a bitmap font, and chooses Noto Sans Mono instead. For now I can fix it by editing ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf and tell it to use something else:

xml
<alias binding="same"> <family>monospace</family> <accept> <family>xos4 Terminus</family> <family>Terminus</family> <family>Monaco</family> <family>Andale Mono</family> </accept> </alias>