Full font hinting not working in Ubuntu 18.04

Question

It seems that full font hinting doesn't work in 18.04.

Due to low resolution laptop screens, I prefer the fonts with full hinting and grayscale antialiasing.

Changing the font hinting from medium to full seem to have no effect whatsoever.

Here's how fonts look in Ubuntu 16.04, sharp and thin.

and here's how they look in Ubuntu 18.04, thick and blurry.

I tried the following:

1. Changing the settings using Gnome Tweak Tool as shown in screenshot.

2. Copying 10-antialias.conf, 10-no-sub-pixel.conf and 10-hinting-full.conf from /etc/fonts/config.avail/ to /etc/fonts/config.d/ and deleting the conflicting files in config.d/.

3. Putting this fonts.conf in ~/.config/fontsconfig/.

But nothing worked.

Anybody else having the same problem? Any suggested solutions?

Solution

I found a solution to the problem linked to in this reddit post.

Add the following line to /etc/environment as root:

FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35 cff:no-stem-darkening=1 autofitter:warping=1"

Then restart the XServer (Xorg or XWayland) or reboot.

It works.

Comments

[Adriano dos Santos Fernandes]

It's different, but for me is still ugly!

[uptoyou]

This is not v35 hinting engine at rhe screenshot named "it works". You can still compare fonts in chrome between 18.04 and 16.04. You will find plethora of diffs.

[Orhan G. Hafif]

@uptoyou still, this is the best solution after those updates. Without full hinting, some people like me, find it blurred to read.

[uptoyou]

@OrhanG.Hafif i'm totally agree, but due to extremely lazy freetype evolution (consider the fact that cleartype patents expiration didn't help freetype to qualitatively integrate their solutions) i ended up with HiDPI display, that solves almost all font's rendering issues.

[Orhan G. Hafif]

And I'm still crying in front of a FHD display :D I'll buy one.