I have been raging about the font rendering on Linux for years. It just sucks. Font has jagged edges and it looks very weird. I dual-boot with windows and the font there is very nice. So, I asked Claude ai to help me and it did a great job and my font is now is actually better than windows. I wanted to share it with everyone in case you have the same issue with the font on Linux.

Here it is:

  1. First, install required packages:
sudo pacman -S freetype2 cairo fontconfig

2. Install better fonts:

sudo pacman -S ttf-dejavu ttf-liberation noto-fonts ttf-roboto ttf-roboto-mono ttf-droid ttf-opensans ttf-hack ttf-fira-code

I have also installed Segoe ui and Segoe UI Variable fonts and that is what I’m using now.

3. Create or edit the font configuration file:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/fonts/conf.d

sudo nano /etc/fonts/local.conf

4. Add this configuration to local.conf:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit name="antialias" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="hinting" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
<edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
<edit name="lcdfilter" mode="assign">
<const>lcddefault</const>
</edit>
<edit name="embeddedbitmap" mode="assign">
<bool>false</bool>
</edit>
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<!-- Increase contrast slightly for all fonts  This is not mandatory and can be commented out-->
<match target="font">
<edit name="weight" mode="assign">
<const>medium</const>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

5. Create a file for FreeType settings:

sudo nano/etc/profile.d/freetype2.sh

6. Add these export commands (I found it there already, but it was commented out. Just removed the “#”):

export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=40"

7. Enable subpixel rendering: (You might get a message that says “File exist”, that’s ok. It means it was already there)

sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

8. Clear and regenerate font cache:

fc-cache -fv

9. For better Java application fonts:

sudo pacman -S jre-openjdk fontconfig

10. Reboot

Additional optional steps: a. For better Firefox font rendering, in about:config: Set

gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode

to 5 (This doesn’t exist in FF. You create it, set it to “number” and give it a value of 5)

Set

gfx.webrender.all

to true

b. If you use VSCode, add to settings.json:

{
"editor.fontFamily": "'Fira Code, 'Droid Sans Mono', 'monospace'",

"editor.fontLigatures": true
}

Truly hope this help someone. Share it with others if you think it will help them.

Thanks :)