So, this has been kind of my obsession these past years using openSUSE – I couldn’t get the fonts to be gently hinted in the way I want them to be. Every patch or repo had an issue with displaying a specific group of fonts. Now I finally found a way to get my fonts to look like this:

I achieved it by conducting these steps:

1) Open yast and click on Software Repositories

2) Click ‘Add’ and select to specify location of the repositories

3) Insert this link. It’s a repository with the most up-to-date libfreetype6 by nick31.

4) Go to software management and use a vendor change, to change all the packages to the ones used in this repository.

Now, this should do it by itself, but somehow, some fonts were still displaying awkwardly. So I guessed (correctly it seems) it has something to do with config files in /etc/fonts. So to get perfect font rendering (like in Ubuntu or Debian 8 – if you’re looking for something similar), you can perform these steps:

1) Download the config files here.

2) Extract them and replace the whole /etc/fonts folder with the one you downloaded.

3) Go to system settings, edit app apearance, enable font hinting and set the values to RGB, and slight hinting.

4) Log out, log back in. Kaboom. Fonts look marvellous.

Disclaimer: I’m not actually sure if changing the config files in /etc/fonts will have any side effects. A week or so in, the only side effect I’ve ‘suffered’ is having great font rendering, which makes using my geeko machine an even greater pleasure than it already was. Don’t perform this task, unless you know what you’re doing.

…have a lot of fun!

With the invaluable work and effort from Petr Gajdos, Takashi Iwai, and all the creative designers, we now have more than 100 open source fonts in the M17N:fonts repository. Most fonts are licensed under the OFL or other open/free licenses. Thanks a lot to all! This repository contains fonts like the previously mentioned Exo typeface, the famous Linux Libertine, or fonts from the Google Webfonts page to name a few. With all these fonts available at your hand, you have many choices to make your text readable and attractive as you like, be it on the Web or in print.

Previous to openSUSE 12.1, all the fonts had a terrible naming convention: some contained a “fonts” prefix, other don’t. Now all fonts follow a naming convention to make it easy to find. So don’t be surprised when your font package has been renamed. If you need further information, check out my original idea from FATE#313035. Packagers will probably find the article about Packaging Fonts in the openSUSE Wiki helpful.

The new M17N:fonts repository collects all fonts now and in the future. New fonts will appear and developed there. To use it, add the repository to your list:

zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/M17N:/fonts/openSUSE_12.1/M17N:fonts.repo

Currently, the supported distributions are openSUSE 11.4, 12.1, Evergreen 11.1, 11.2, Factory, Tumbleweed, as well as SLE11 SP1 and SP2.

Have fun and be creative with the new fonts!

The sans serif font is beautifully crafted and contains 9(!) different width as you can see in the following graphic:

Natanael, the graphic designer, wrote about his font:

Today Exo is already a very mature font family, with over 700 characters supporting most Western, Central and Eastern European languages – and it can still go further! This coverage has been reached for all 9 weights, the maximum possible on the web. Each weight has an upright style and the corresponding ‘true’ italic style. Many ‘techno’ fonts have only the simple slanted oblique companion styles, but for the highest typographic quality it is essential to have true italics that are drawn specially.

Some unique OpenType features:

• small caps
• discretionary ligatures
• stylistic alternates
• old style figures, tabular figures, fractions
• a lot more…

If this project reaches its funding goal it will be published in Google Web Fonts under the SIL Open Font License. Currently, almost 80% is pledged, but only 18 days are left. If you find this project useful, please help Natanael and make the Web a more beautiful place. I already did so. Thanks!