Re: Fonts went to crap with 1.4 under Linux RedHat 9

David Dorward wrote:
> Nick wrote:
> 
> 
>>I installed Mozilla 1.4 and all my fonts under RedHat Linux 9 now look
>>like crap. Under the "old" Mozilla (1.2.1) the fonts were all set to
>>"[System Default]", but this is not an option under 1.4. In fact the
>>fonts listed under version 1.2.1 and version 1.4 are totally
>>different! Why would this be? Shouldn't the fonts Mozilla uses all
>>come from the same place on my computer?
> 
> 
> You probably installed a version without antialiasing compiled in. Install a
> version that uses FreeType.
> 

I have also discovered this once after upgrading from the binary version 
that came with my distro. It is disappointing because the instructions 
for installing binaries are easier to understand than the instructions 
for compiling with freetype.

IANAPM (I am not a package maintainer) but it would be nice if at least 
every release (stable and unstable but not nightly) were distributed 
(and supported, not thrown in every 4 months) with both anti aliased, 
and non-anti-aliased (or aliased fonts if you prefer) if there really 
are so many people who would not be able to run the anti aliased versions.

It looks like the latest release of mozilla on mozilla.org with gtk2 is 
1.3 which is over 3 months old. I hope this is acknowledged as a valid 
point:

    - compare install instructions for by-source and by-rpm
    - compare the visual appearance of with-gtk2 and without-freetype
    - most linux users use either an rpm based distro or may know how to
      convert rpms to an installable form.
      (I use rpm2tgz when I feel the need)

If the mozilla team doesn't care if people without a technical 
background know how to install a newer version of mozilla that also 
looks good, then I guess nothing will change.

Is there even a good reason for people to use mozilla without anti 
aliased fonts by default? I think any system that can run mozilla will 
be able to handle it with anti aliased fonts without slowing it down 
much. Look at how fast morphix lightgui is!

Related links nobody needs to see as a reply to this message:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1182
http://webtools.mozilla.org/build/config.cgi
http://mozilla.org/ *faq*