406148 - Text does not use subpixel smoothing like rest of my Ubuntu desktop

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Graphics: Text, defect)

Description

[Peter Arrenbrecht]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b1) Gecko/2007110903 Firefox/3.0b1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b1) Gecko/2007110903 Firefox/3.0b1

I have installed a custom version of freetype providing excellent subpixel smoothing. Firefox 3 does not respect this. Firefox 2 does.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Just open any page.
Actual Results:  
Pixelly text.

Expected Results:  
Smooth text.

I am using freetype from http://www.telemail.fi/mlind/ubuntu

Comment 1

[Kevin Brosnan]

Firefox now uses xft for font rendering this bug may be invaild.

Comment 2

[Sylvain Pasche]

Peter, what Ubuntu/Debian distribution are you using? Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10 already includes the latest Freetype and both Cairo and Xft are patched with the lcd-filtering patches from David Turner, so using an external repository is not needed any more (http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/x/xft/xft_2.1.12-2ubuntu4/changelog http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/libc/libcairo/libcairo_1.4.10-1ubuntu4/changelog)

This bug may be a duplicate of bug 375591 (See in particular bug 375591 comment 12)

Kevin: Firefox is now using Cairo for font rendering instead of Xft.

Comment 4

[Peter Arrenbrecht]

Sylvain, I am using Ubuntu Feisty 7.04. And, yes, I did notice that on Gutsy the external repo is no longer needed. Shall try Gutsy again soon as the new ATI driver seems to work better with it.

Comment 5

[Sylvain Pasche]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Sylvain, I am using Ubuntu Feisty 7.04. And, yes, I did notice that on Gutsy
> the external repo is no longer needed. Shall try Gutsy again soon as the new
> ATI driver seems to work better with it.

Just to be clear: upgrading to Gutsy won't solve your subpixel issue as of now. This will be fixed once http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10301 is integrated into Cairo and Firefox Cairo is updated.

Comment 6

[Ken Deeter]

Why can't firefox use the system cairo libraries?

Is it only the firefox release from mozilla.com that includes its own cairo? Can we expect that when there's an Ubuntu release that includes firefox 3 by default, that it would use the system cairo libraries that are patched?

Comment 7

[Sylvain Pasche]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Why can't firefox use the system cairo libraries?

It can for cairo > 1.5 (however, this is not supported officially).

> Is it only the firefox release from mozilla.com that includes its own cairo?

The official releases do. Linux distributions usually use system cairo I think.

> Can we expect that when there's an Ubuntu release that includes firefox 3 by
> default, that it would use the system cairo libraries that are patched?

Yes, that is something to expect. However, it requires a cairo version more recent that the one shipped on recent distributions (Ubuntu 7.10 / Fedora 8).

Comment 8

[fawer]

Probably related to bug 522046, bug 537190, bug 531996.