Ubuntu Linux Help

I received a message this morning from someone who installed Ubuntu as a new user. I sent him the download link a long time ago and he’s finally installed Dapper (on an older PC). He emailed me because his fonts looked fuzzy. He seemed a bit frazzled, but this fix worked for him so it might for you.

Some versions of Ubuntu do not have font smoothing enabled (Edgy, Dapper, etc… - I’ve not tried Hardy yet). To enable font smoothing, you need to edit (or create) the .fonts.conf file (which is in the home directory of your login account).

Because we’re in the GUI, just surf to your home folder and enable the viewing of hidden files. If you see .fonts.conf, open it for editing (or create it). I originally found this solution (because I had the same problem) on one of the Ubuntu Forums posts here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=4456. It’s been in my bookmarks for some time now, so I don’t remember how far down the post was, sorry - But it’s a great read if you want to learn more! …you’ll find a ton of font smoothing tweaks there including TTF tweaks. If you’re looking to install TTF related fonts, try the following:

How to Install TTF and CTF Fonts in Ubuntu.
CrunchBang’s (CrunchBang.org): 465 Free Fonts for Ubuntu

Edit the file to look like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM “fonts.dtd”>
<fontconfig>
<match target=”font”>
<edit name=”autohint” mode=”assign”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

Log out and then back in and you should be good to go!