Improve fonts archlinux

improve_fonts.md

Improve Fonts

Newest

Make your Arch fonts beautiful easily! This is what I do when I install Arch Linux to improve the fonts.

You may consider the following settings to improve your fonts for system-wide usage without installing a patched font library packages (eg. Infinality):

Install some fonts, for example:
sudo pacman -S ttf-dejavu ttf-liberation noto-fonts

Enable font presets by creating symbolic links:
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
sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d

The above will disable embedded bitmap for all fonts, enable sub-pixel RGB rendering, and enable the LCD filter which is designed to reduce colour fringing when subpixel rendering is used.

Enable FreeType subpixel hinting mode by editing:

/etc/profile.d/freetype2.sh

Uncomment the desired mode at the end:

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

For font consistency, all applications should be set to use the serif, sans-serif, and monospace aliases, which are mapped to particular fonts by fontconfig.

Create /etc/fonts/local.conf with following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
   <match>
      <edit mode="prepend" name="family">
         <string>Noto Sans</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
   <match target="pattern">
      <test qual="any" name="family">
         <string>serif</string>
      </test>
      <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same">
         <string>Noto Serif</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
   <match target="pattern">
      <test qual="any" name="family">
         <string>sans-serif</string>
      </test>
      <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same">
         <string>Noto Sans</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
   <match target="pattern">
      <test qual="any" name="family">
         <string>monospace</string>
      </test>
      <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same">
         <string>Noto Mono</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
</fontconfig>

Set your font settings to match above in your DE system settings.

Infinality Remix

If you want to use infinality you should try https://github.com/pdeljanov/infinality-remix
TL;DR
yay -S freetype2-infinality-remix fontconfig-infinality-remix cairo-infinality-remix

Enable font presets by creating symbolic links:
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
sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d

To be sure, inside /etc/fonts/local.conf add with following
change Favourite for your selected font (i.e Source Sans Pro, Droid Sans, Droid Serif, etc):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
      <bool>false</bool>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
      <const>hintslight</const>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
      <const>rgb</const>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>
   <match>
      <edit mode="prepend" name="family">
         <string>Favourite Sans</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
   <match target="pattern">
      <test qual="any" name="family">
         <string>serif</string>
      </test>
      <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same">
         <string>Favourite Serif</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
   <match target="pattern">
      <test qual="any" name="family">
         <string>sans-serif</string>
      </test>
      <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same">
         <string>Favourite Sans</string>
      </edit>
   </match>
   <match target="pattern">
      <test qual="any" name="family">
         <string>monospace</string>
      </test>
      <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same">
         <string>Favourite Mono</string>
      </edit>
   </match>  
</fontconfig>

The following fonts are recommended and should be installed for a good experience:

• Caladea (ttf-caladea)
• Carlito (ttf-carlito)
• DejaVu (ttf-dejavu)
• Impallari Cantora (aur/ttf-impallari-cantora)
• Liberation (ttf-liberation)
• Noto (noto-fonts)
• Open Sans (ttf-opensans)
• Overpass (otf-overpass)
• Roboto (ttf-roboto)
• TeX Gyre (tex-gyre-fonts)
• Ubuntu (ttf-ubuntu-font-family)
• Courier Prime (aur/ttf-courier-prime)
• Gelasio (aur/ttf-gelasio-ib)
• Merriweather (aur/ttf-merriweather)
• Source Sans Pro (aur/ttf-source-sans-pro-ibx)
• Signika (aur/ttf-signika)

Older and deprecated

To improve the fonts in Arch we first need to add some additional fonts. Add the following to the terminal:

sudo pacman -S ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-inconsolata ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-dejavu ttf-freefont ttf-linux-libertine ttf-liberation

yay -S ttf-ms-fonts ttf-vista-fonts ttf-monaco ttf-qurancomplex-fonts

Next we will disable bitmat fonts, which are used as a fallback.

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

Now we need to add the Infinality repo to our pacman.conf file. To do this, open the file with gedit (or whatever text editor your using):

sudo vim /etc/pacman.conf

Add the following to your pacman.conf to use the infinality repo:

[infinality-bundle]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://bohoomil.com/repo/$arch

[infinality-bundle-multilib]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://bohoomil.com/repo/multilib/$arch

[infinality-bundle-fonts]
SigLevel = Never
Server = http://bohoomil.com/repo/fonts

Then uncomment the multilib on pacman configuration to download and install 32 bit package on 64 bit systems

[multilib] 
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Install the bundle:

sudo pacman -Syy infinality-bundle infinality-bundle-multilib # all question answer yes

Finally, reboot your system.

I had to change line 43, <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Noto Mono</string></edit>,
to Noto Sans Mono as it was incorrectly detecting the font as Noto Sans instead.

I had to change line 43, <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Noto Mono</string></edit>,
to Noto Sans Mono as it was incorrectly detecting the font as Noto Sans instead.

This guide is outdated.

Can it still be used, though?

Can it still be used, though?

Well yeah. But is highly outdated. If you use it and improve it please let me know to update the main guide.

I found this somewhere, and even though it's outdated, it helped a ton. Fonts have always been an issue for me.

Firefox is not respecting system font in the ui now.

Thank you - I was beating myself up trying to get the firefox developer tools fonts to look better through userChrome.css. Turned out it was just my monospace font setup for the whole OS.

Thanks!

Ok guys. I updated it to markdown for better visuals and other hints to improve the fonts.

I have been reinstalling arch testing with different setups and this guide "although described as outdated' helps a lot. It is basically what I use after every install.

I had to change line 43, <edit name="family" mode="assign" binding="same"><string>Noto Mono</string></edit>,
to Noto Sans Mono as it was incorrectly detecting the font as Noto Sans instead.

as @xandora mentioned already the font "Noto Mono" does not exist and needs to be replaced with something like "Noto Sans Mono".

Anyway thanks again for the guide