# [PC-BSD] Why PC-BSD looks corrupted and how to fix it?



## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

I have two systems, and Linux Mint looks way more cleaner and well done. What is the reason for this? How can I make BSD look more like Mint or any other Linux?


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## cpm@ (Feb 16, 2016)

Disclaimer: Questions about 'derivative FreeBSDs', like PC-BSD should be asked on the forums and/or mailing lists for these specific products.

Topics about PC-BSD | FreeNAS | DesktopBSD | m0N0WALL | pfSense | Debian GNU/kFreeBSD


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

cpm said:


> Disclaimer: Questions about 'derivative FreeBSDs', like PC-BSD should be asked on the forums and/or mailing lists for these specific products.
> 
> Topics about PC-BSD | FreeNAS | DesktopBSD | m0N0WALL | pfSense | Debian GNU/kFreeBSD



Can you please make an exception, because on PC-BSD forum nobody will care... and this matters.


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## gofer_touch (Feb 16, 2016)

Hmm. First of all you are comparing two different desktop environments. Install MATE on the PCBSD system and then do a comparison. The moderator is also right. This isn't PC-BSDs forum.


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## cpm@ (Feb 16, 2016)

It's worth to read the following thread related to your question.

https://forums.pcbsd.org/thread-15144.html


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

cpm said:


> It's worth to read the following thread related to your question.
> 
> https://forums.pcbsd.org/thread-15144.html



Yup, thank's. But they didn't solve anything, maybe FreeBSD community will digg into it as a common problem?


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## lme@ (Feb 16, 2016)

Why is this a problem?


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

lme@ said:


> Why is this a problem?



Because my eyes hurt after a while looking at this text, unfortunately I'm not a big expert (I wish I was) in typography and typefaces - it's not necessary to be windows-like aliasing, but to at least make it not to hurt (and read how else the text can become). Anyway, I want to adapt my bsd desktop to creative stuff like music making and photos, so this things require an aesthetic environment (for inspiration, duhhh).


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

gofer_touch said:


> Hmm. First of all you are comparing two different desktop environments. Install MATE on the PCBSD system and then do a comparison. The moderator is also right. This isn't PC-BSDs forum.



I don't think what you wrote is relevant, I started a thread about making the text more readable and offered a comparison. The MATE on PC-BSD looks also as if it was fitted there with an axe... thank you.


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## Maxnix (Feb 16, 2016)

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but the recognised screen resolution is the same on both OSes?


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

Maxnix said:


> Perhaps this is a stupid question, but the recognised screen resolution is the same on both OSes?



These are images from Google, not my own screenshots.


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## Maxnix (Feb 16, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> These are images from Google, not my own screenshots.


Yeah, I had already noticed.  I was wondering if the text looks ugly for a screen resolution problem rather than other.

Apart from this, have you already checked if your DE (KDE, MATE... which one is irrelevant) has correct settings for antialiasing?


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## Nicushor (Feb 16, 2016)

Maxnix said:


> Yeah, I had already noticed.  I was wondering if the text looks ugly for a screen resolution problem rather than other.
> 
> Apart from this, have you already checked if your DE (KDE, MATE... which one is irrelevant) has correct settings for antialiasing?



Yup, they all look 'ugly'.


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## Maxnix (Feb 16, 2016)

So the problem is neither antialiasing nor screen resolution.
Uhm, there are (at least) two other things to try:
- Check which font PC-BSD is using and if the font type is the same even. (I.E. book, bold condensed...). In my experience this can affect readability.
- Look at this: http://www.rawcomputing.co.uk/linux/linuxtips3.html. Perhaps the font rendering details can be useful.​


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## tankist02 (Feb 18, 2016)

Nicushor you can try to play with text settings: anti-aliasing, hinting, etc. I tried PC BSD a few times and didn't like how it renders text. I get a better picture in FreeBSD, but it takes time and efforts to get there.


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## tobik@ (Feb 18, 2016)

What solved my own font rendering issues:

 Create /usr/local/etc/fonts/conf.d/99-desktoprc.conf (I'm not using a desktop environment, so I don't know if these will take if you do). These are basically the same settings as the ones posted in the linked PC-BSD Forums thread:

```
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
            <const>hintslight</const>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
            <const>lcddefault</const>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
            <const>rgb</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>
```

 `ln -s /usr/local/etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf /usr/local/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf`
 installing x11-fonts/croscorefonts-fonts-ttf and setting them up as default fonts by saving https://raw.githubusercontent.com/t...desktoprc/files/99-desktoprc-croscore.conf.in as /usr/local/etc/fonts/conf.d/99-desktoprc-croscore.conf
 Restart all applications to test
EDIT: Fixed paths. Thanks lme@!


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## Nicushor (Feb 18, 2016)

Thanks I'll check it!


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## lme@ (Feb 18, 2016)

tobik said:


> What solved my own font rendering issues:
> 
> Create /usr/local/etc/fonts.d/99-desktoprc.conf ...
> ... setting them up as default fonts by saving https://raw.githubusercontent.com/t...desktoprc/files/99-desktoprc-croscore.conf.in as /usr/local/etc/conf.d/99-desktoprc-croscore.conf



I think you should re-check those paths.


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## Deleted member 45312 (Feb 18, 2016)

I am using a Window Manager only (x11-wm/fvwm2) and my font configuration file is located in my home directory :
~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf


```
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fontconfig/fonts.conf for per-user font configuration -->

<fontconfig>

  <!--
  Private font directory
  -->
  <dir prefix="xdg">fonts</dir>

  <!-- Replace Courier with a better-looking font -->
  <match target="pattern">
  <test name="family" qual="any">
  <string>Courier</string>
  </test>
  <edit name="family" mode="assign">
  <!-- Other choices - Courier New, Luxi Mono -->
  <string>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</string>
  </edit>
  </match>

  <!-- Reject bitmap fonts in favour of Truetype, Postscript, etc. -->
  <selectfont>
  <rejectfont>
  <pattern>
   <patelt name="scalable"><bool>false</bool></patelt>
  </pattern>
  </rejectfont>
  </selectfont>

  <!--
  <match target="pattern" >
  <test name="family" qual="any" >
  <string>Helvetica</string>
  </test>
  <edit binding="strong" mode="prepend" name="family">
  <string>Arial</string>
  </edit>
  </match>
  -->

  <!-- default quality settings -->
  <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">  <const>none</const> </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"> <bool>true</bool> </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">  <bool>true</bool> </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">  <bool>true</bool> </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle"> <const>hintfull</const> </edit>
  </match>

  <!-- reduce ringing ==> requires freetype2 'WITH_LCD_FILTERING=yes' -->
  <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter"> <const>lcdlight</const> </edit>
  </match>

  <!-- disable autohinting for bold fonts -->
  <match target="font">
  <test compare="more" name="weight">  <const>medium</const> </test>
  <edit mode="assign"  name="autohint"> <bool>false</bool> </edit>
  </match>

  <!-- disable autohinting for fonts that don't need it -->
  <match target="pattern">
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Andale Mono</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Arial</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Arial Black</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Comic Sans MS</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Courier New</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Georgia</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Impact</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Trebuchet MS</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Tahoma</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Times New Roman</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Verdana</string> </test>
  <test qual="any" name="family"> <string>Webdings</string> </test>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">  <bool>true</bool> </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="autohint"> <bool>false</bool> </edit>
  </match>

</fontconfig>
```

All is looking very good. Better than with some DE.


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## Nicushor (Feb 18, 2016)

dlegrand said:


> I am using a Window Manager only (x11-wm/fvwm2) and my font configuration file is located in my home directory :
> ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
> 
> 
> ...



Can you paste a screenshot here?


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## Deleted member 45312 (Feb 18, 2016)

Nicushor said:


> Can you paste a screenshot here?


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## Nicushor (Feb 18, 2016)

Looks very nice actually, thanks. It's a beginning...


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## gonubana (Feb 20, 2016)

Just being random:
Generally speaking, the more you work on $something the nicer it appear to become.
So, given enough time, you could eventually appreciate most things through working on them.


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## ivosevb (Feb 20, 2016)

I'm using Openbox. Initially after install yes fonts looks little ugly. Everything is very good  for me with this  ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf

```
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
  <const>rgb</const>
  </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
  <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
  <const>hintfull</const>
  </edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
  <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
```

And screenshot ...


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