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Poor font rendering on Ubuntu 14.04

  • 6 replies
  • 23 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cHr.DeV

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Hi, I'm experiencing very poor font rendering on Firefox 30.0 on my freshly installed Ubuntu 14.04.

This is how it looks: http://imgur.com/mAK1OGM

And this is how it suppose to look: http://imgur.com/Z69GCdU

You can't see any difference between bold font and regular. Also there's no... smoothing (?) like on the second image.

It's very weird, because tor-browser 24.6.0 on this same system renders this same font/page correctly - second screen was made on tor-browser. Also my other machine, also Ubuntu 14.04, also Firefox 30.0, renders this correctly! Chromium, Chrome, also ok.

I've tried disabling hardware acceleration I've tried switching all gfx. options in about:config + some other font related settings I've tried two different graphic drivers (Ubuntu integrated one and Nvidia proriatary) I've tried two different window managers (compiz and marco) I've tried changing system font settings I've tried different font types (ttf, woff, svg) - yes, it's a website with custom fonts, but they should render good I've also tried switching from custom font to system built-in version of this same font I've tried everything I could think of - nothing makes any difference whatsoever

I think I also have this same issue on Thunderbird - to see difference of a bold font you need to crank up size to 18px or more.

I don't know what else I can do. Please help.

Best Regards

Hi, I'm experiencing very poor font rendering on Firefox 30.0 on my freshly installed Ubuntu 14.04. This is how it looks: http://imgur.com/mAK1OGM And this is how it suppose to look: http://imgur.com/Z69GCdU You can't see any difference between bold font and regular. Also there's no... smoothing (?) like on the second image. It's very weird, because tor-browser 24.6.0 on this same system renders this same font/page correctly - second screen was made on tor-browser. Also my other machine, also Ubuntu 14.04, also Firefox 30.0, renders this correctly! Chromium, Chrome, also ok. I've tried disabling hardware acceleration I've tried switching all gfx. options in about:config + some other font related settings I've tried two different graphic drivers (Ubuntu integrated one and Nvidia proriatary) I've tried two different window managers (compiz and marco) I've tried changing system font settings I've tried different font types (ttf, woff, svg) - yes, it's a website with custom fonts, but they should render good I've also tried switching from custom font to system built-in version of this same font I've tried everything I could think of - nothing makes any difference whatsoever I think I also have this same issue on Thunderbird - to see difference of a bold font you need to crank up size to 18px or more. I don't know what else I can do. Please help. Best Regards

All Replies (6)

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Just want to add that I have tried completely reinstalling Firefox, removing all user settings etc. I also tried removing all plugins Oh, and I checked two environments (Unity and MATE) And... I tried different versions of this font Comfortaa 1.00 and 2.004 No difference

PS. Just checked on Nightly 33.0a1 - this same issue

Modified by cHr.DeV

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It almost looks that a mixture of fonts is being used in the first screenshot.

Is that a popup (tooltip) that you get in the Flash player or is this content on a web page.

Can you right-click this text and check the Fonts tab in the Inspector (Firefox/Tools > Web Developer)?

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It's normal website, here are screenshots from Inspector: http://i.imgur.com/9fj0y4n.png http://i.imgur.com/uKqhCKS.png

I've been using this same exact setup of fonts for about 3 years and never had problems before

But the thing is, fonts on other websites also look bad: http://i.imgur.com/XVLqRU6.png vs http://i.imgur.com/uCG0U6d.png and here is system font Arial, not custom

Modified by cHr.DeV

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Hmm. I see the same irregularity with this Comfortaa Regular font. It looks like a render problem with some font-sizes as I can make it show properly by slightly zooming the page in or out or by using the Inspector to change the font-size from 16px to 15px or 17px (12px makes it wrong again)

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Just checked Pale Moon 24.6.2 and it's got this same issue.

It's so weird... I've been trying to reproduce this issue on my second machine (same system, same versions) but no luck... besides setup on both machines is identical - default.

And why would tor-browser 24.6.0 render better on this same system ?

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Just installed fresh Ubuntu 14.04 and FF 30.0 on third machine (very slow and old laptop with crappy integrated graphics) and amazingly it renders good! So it's not Ubuntu's installator fault... and it's not issue of computer power...

Oh, and I also tried reset button at about:support - no change

C'mon, nobody knows any solutions to this ?? Maybe this should be reported as bug at bugzilla ??

Modified by cHr.DeV