Fedora 14 - How to Improve the font rendering

If you want great font rendering in Fedora 14, follow these quick easy steps. Please note you will have to restart for the changes to take effect.

Enable the RPM Fusion repository, http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration

Open a terminal and type

su -c 'yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm'

Install the freetype-freeworld package

su -c 'yum install freetype-freeworld'

Goto System > Preferences > Appearance

Click for a bigger view

Select Subpixel Smoothing (LCDs), also click on the details button and make sure the hinting is on Full.

As you can see in the screenshot, I have changed the default fonts to the Liberation set. I think they look nicer.
 
For most web sites to look as they were intended, you will need to install the Microsoft True type fonts.

You can either try and compile the Microsoft fonts package from http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ or download and install the rpm file I compiled earlier.

Open a terminal and type,

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16953763/msttcore-fonts-2.0-3.noarch.rpm

This will download the msttcore fonts package to your current directory. Install the msttcore package by typing,

su -c 'rpm -ivh msttcore-fonts-2.0-3.noarch.rpm'

The final part, reboot your system.

Revised on 15/12/2010, comments 1 & 2 affected

Is it me or is there a lack of interest in openSUSE?

Whether its browsing the internet and looking for information about openSUSE or talking to the general public, openSUSE just seems to not get the attention I believe it deserves.

It isn't a bad operating system but struggles to gain popularity, is that still because of the Microsoft deal a few years ago?

Is it because it dropped KDE 3.5 at a time when KDE 4.x was in a miserable state?

Is it because it places more emphasis on KDE?

Is it due to the poor documentation it provides to its users?

I am interested in your views and experiences with openSUSE. What is it that makes you stay away from openSUSE?

Fedora 14 - A very smooth release!

After trying Fedora 14 x86_64 I am quite impressed, it has to be the first Fedora release I have used that has worked without a single issue out of the box.

Furthermore the performance seems better than Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10. I have never viewed Fedora as something suitable as a main OS but given it is working far better than Ubuntu 10.x the temptation is hard to resist.

As an experiment I am using Fedora 14 exclusively on my Samsung R510 laptop and I am pleased to say the battery life puts Ubuntu to shame.

Something that I have always liked with Fedora is its simple feel and less bloat when compared to openSUSE and Ubuntu, this makes it perfect for my laptop which I only use to browse the internet and check my emails.

I haven't been following the Fedora Project much as of late but it seems like there has been a shift in their goals. Looking at their project home page (which is looking very slick) I see Fedora being portrayed as something for the casual user with an emphasis on stability.

Maybe they have realized if Fedora is more stable, more people will use it.

In any case Fedora 14 seems like a solid release and a job well done.