Debian Linux Font Rendering - Eyestrain

JTL

Just curious if anyone knows how to mitigate/disable font antialiasing on Debian based distros (Kali) I need to use it for a pentesting challenge and haven't been able to use it due to eyestrain because of blurry fonts, ie not @KM 's problem as it obviously occurs in a virtual machine as well (Host system is OS X 10.10)

Slacor

I think kali uses gnome, right?
I don't know any way of disabling it via terminal (which would work on most linux based)

Untested, but here's a guide to get anti-aliasing on. Do the opposite at the last step? 😃
http://helpdeskgeek.com/linux-tips/enable-anti-aliasing-for-better-kde-app-integration-in-gnome/

As a alternative, you don't have to use kali. Just find the tools you need, download them to another distro that you know how to disable anti-aliasing (like linux mint) and run it from there.

JTL

Slacor Indeed it does, or KDE with custom image.

Downloaded Linux Mint earlier and installed it on VirtualBox. WIll play with it tomorrow.

Obviously I'm having no direct problems with MacBook Pro and BenQ screen's I got. Now I'm craving a 2560x1440 IPS for secondary 😃

JTL

http://linuxforcynics.com/how-to/improve-font-rendering-in-debian

Notice the XML keys? I will need to find others for the equivalents of Mint values.

Don't quote me on this, but I think the Mint settings are just changing this config by a frontend

Slacor

JTL I think the Mint settings are just changing this config by a frontend

Yup

I ran a find command to identify the most recently adjusted files after adjusting the font values

  ~$  sudo find ~/ -amin -1
~/.config/dconf
~/.config/dconf/user

It's binary, so some kind of dconf reader will be neeed.

~$ file .config/dconf/user
.config/dconf/user: GVariant Database file, version 0

JTL

Slacor https://askubuntu.com/questions/98531/how-can-i-change-font-rendering-to-sub-pixel-bgr-ordering

untested

JTL

also: http://www.freedesktop.org/software/fontconfig/fontconfig-user.html

JTL

SUCCESS

Go to Applications -> Tweak Tool -> Fonts

Default setting is: Hinting: Medium and Antialiasing: Grayscale

Setting Hinting to Slight looks good, as Slacor says.

Comparison (use zoom):

https://i.imgur.com/kiTwHyX.png