Sorry I am very new to Arch Linux so I am not aware of many things so forgive me for this weird question but it's really bothering me now.
I have been using Kali Linux for over two years and have had no problem with that. But a few months ago, I have switched to Garuda Linux. I was accustomed to the GNOME desktop environment but now I am using KDE Plasma so I might have messed up somethings in my settings.
Roughly a month ago I updated my Linux computer using pacman GUI software and all seemed fine. All the packages were upgraded and nothing was changed much. But after sometime I could notice that the edges of the system fonts seemed to be degraded in quality.
There is a multi-coloured outline to the text. I have also noticed that this only occurs with system fonts. Fonts in Google Chrome and Konsole seems to be fine. But on using other applications like pacman GUI, these fonts again get degraded.
Look at the screenshot given below to see the difference
Now if I zoom-in at the text in Google Chrome ... it looks like this (see the screenshot provided below)
this looks neat but when I zoom-in at the text in the date [ provided by the system ] ... the quality appears to be degraded. There is some weird outline here. (see the screenshot provided below)
You can clearly see the degraded pixel quality.
What should I do to fix this? I have no idea whats wrong
If you need any logs then let me know.
Thank you
Try other plasma theme to confirm it is not about theming.
1 Like
I switched the "global theme" in system settings to defaults (Breeze)
However I am curious, why is it happening with the "Modern" theme.
Do you need any logs for more information?
And when I switch to "Breeze Dark" I again get that degraded quality.
We need your hardware data, post inxi as shown below.
Read
Writing a well formatted post in the forum (Discource powered) is important, if you want readers to easily read and understand.
It's especially important for terminal output.
Here is a brief tutorial.
please
inxi -Fxxxza
Even if you personally think it is unnecessary.
and
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Here you go
$ inxi -Fxxxza
System: Kernel: 5.9.14-zen1-1-zen x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/@/boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen root=UUID=b871cf83-85ab-4ed0-a452-4e8f8a2edec6 rw
rootflags=subvol=@ quiet splash loglevel=3
Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.4 tk: Qt 5.15.2 info: latte-dock wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Garuda Linux
Machine: Type: Desktop System: HP product: HP All-in-One 24-f0xx v: N/A serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 13 serial: <filter>
Mobo: HP model: 8446 v: 0000 serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: AMI v: F.15 date: 05/07/2019
CPU: Info: 6-Core model: Intel Core i5-8400T bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Kaby Lake family: 6 model-id: 9E (158)
stepping: A (10) microcode: DE L2 cache: 9216 KiB
flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20399
Speed: 3201 MHz min/max: 800/3300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3221 2: 3201 3: 3201 4: 3167 5: 3258 6: 3201
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT disabled
Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics: Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3e92
Device-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce MX110] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: N/A alternate: nouveau bus ID: 01:00.0
chip ID: 10de:174e
Device-3: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP TrueVision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-5:4
chip ID: 05c8:03c7 serial: <filter>
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: intel display ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9")
Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 92 size: 530x300mm (20.9x11.8") diag: 609mm (24")
Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio: Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a348
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.9.14-zen1-1-zen
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel
port: 4000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168
IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: N/A
modules: rtw88_8821ce port: 3000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:c821
Device-3: TP-Link TL-WN722N v2/v3 [Realtek RTL8188EUS] type: USB driver: r8188eu bus ID: 1-1:2 chip ID: 2357:010c
serial: <filter>
IF: wlp0s20f0u1 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives: Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 12.39 GiB (1.3%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM003-1SB102 size: 931.51 GiB block size: physical: 4096 B
logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm serial: <filter> rev: HPH4 scheme: GPT
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 465.00 GiB size: 465.00 GiB (100.00%) used: 12.39 GiB (2.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda5
ID-2: /home raw size: 465.00 GiB size: 465.00 GiB (100.00%) used: 12.39 GiB (2.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda5
ID-3: /var/log raw size: 465.00 GiB size: 465.00 GiB (100.00%) used: 12.39 GiB (2.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda5
Swap: Kernel: swappiness: 10 (default 60) cache pressure: 75 (default 100)
ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 154.9 MiB used: 512 KiB (0.3%) priority: 32767 dev: /dev/zram0
ID-2: swap-2 type: zram size: 154.9 MiB used: 512 KiB (0.3%) priority: 32767 dev: /dev/zram1
ID-3: swap-3 type: zram size: 154.9 MiB used: 512 KiB (0.3%) priority: 32767 dev: /dev/zram2
ID-4: swap-4 type: zram size: 154.9 MiB used: 256 KiB (0.2%) priority: 32767 dev: /dev/zram3
ID-5: swap-5 type: zram size: 154.9 MiB used: 256 KiB (0.2%) priority: 32767 dev: /dev/zram4
ID-6: swap-6 type: zram size: 154.9 MiB used: 256 KiB (0.2%) priority: 32767 dev: /dev/zram5
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 54.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 247 Uptime: 29m Memory: 3.63 GiB used: 1.49 GiB (40.9%) Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0
clang: 11.0.0 Packages: pacman: 1328 lib: 286 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 running in: konsole inxi: 3.1.06
I hope this helps.
If you need anything else let me know. Otherwise I will manage with breeze light theme.
XOSPHERE:
KDE Plasma 5.20.4
Update your system
upd
Buy more RAM if possible.
2 Likes
I've had the same happen. Go into System Settings>Display && Monitor>Display Configuration, and re-select your screen resolution.
It was a real head-scratcher.
4 Likes
How many other places did you post this same question?
It would seem slightly rude to spread the same question across many fora and take up the time of many people.
4 Likes
This confirms it’s about theming. Also video drivers and compositor settings related.
If the “Apply” button does not come available, change resolution to a different one and Apply and back to your preferred one and Apply.
Check for results and if there is no improvement, change compositor to OpenGL 2.0, or Xrender.
You may also try with disabled Blur in workspace visual effects.
The next possible thing to try is video drivers configuration, as you have dual-gpu and nvidia. This is a long story, so try the above first.
3 Likes
I was having some issues while logging-in to garuda linux forum so I had posted on Unix Stack Exchange but then later on I could log-in to this forum so I posted the question here and deleted from Unix Stack Exchange
1 Like
I tried this. The “Apply” button did not appear available on re-selecting my current resolution (1920x1080). So I changed my resolution to a different one and switched back to 1920x1080 as you suggested, but no luck in that.
Tried switching to both of them and restarted kde using the following commands:
kquitapp5 plasmashell
kstart5 plasmashell
Still those weird pixelated fonts are appearing.
Sorry but I couldn’t find blur anywhere.
Also I forgot to mention that, now I am using the default Breeze theme and today I am again getting that degraded font quality here as well. Yesterday it was not there but today after another restart, in Breeze I can see those bad quality fonts.https://i.imgur.com/qpLp3CI.png
Clear your ~/.cache/ folder.
Blur is in effects, as explained.
4 Likes
mcxds
2 April 2021 09:53
14
I'm not a Garuda user but I always feel for people that have font rendering problems under Linux.
There could be multiple reasons for the multi-coloured outline of your fonts (usually called color fringing).
Could you please post the output of the following commands in the terminal?
ls /etc/fonts
ls /etc/fonts/conf.d
ls $HOME/.config/fontconfig
Cache cleared and blur disabled. Still no luck. I can still see that color fringing.
Thank you for letting me know that term. It was weird to call it by different names all the time
Anyway, here is the output.
$ ls /etc/fonts
conf.avail conf.d fonts.conf
$ ls /etc/fonts/conf.d
00kde.conf 30-metric-aliases.conf 46-noto-serif.conf 60-latin.conf 66-lohit-bengali.conf 66-lohit-kashmiri@devanagari.conf 66-lohit-sindhi@devanagari.conf 66-noto-serif.conf README
10-hinting-slight.conf 40-nonlatin.conf 49-sansserif.conf 65-0-lohit-marathi.conf 66-lohit-devanagari.conf 66-lohit-konkani.conf 66-lohit-tamil-classical.conf 67-lohit-malayalam.conf
10-powerline-symbols.conf 45-generic.conf 50-user.conf 65-0-lohit-nepali.conf 66-lohit-gujarati.conf 66-lohit-maithili.conf 66-lohit-tamil.conf 69-unifont.conf
10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf 45-latin.conf 51-local.conf 65-fonts-persian.conf 66-lohit-gurmukhi.conf 66-lohit-odia.conf 66-lohit-telugu.conf 75-yes-terminus.conf
10-symbols.conf 46-noto-mono.conf 59-lohit-devanagari.conf 65-nonlatin.conf 66-lohit-hindi.conf 66-lohit-oriya.conf 66-noto-mono.conf 80-delicious.conf
20-unhint-small-vera.conf 46-noto-sans.conf 60-generic.conf 66-lohit-assamese.conf 66-lohit-kannada.conf 66-lohit-punjabi.conf
$ ls $HOME/.config/fontconfig
fonts.conf
Let me know if I should provide something else.
mcxds
2 April 2021 11:07
17
As there is a file in $HOME/.config/fontconfig, I also need to know the content of that file. You can use the command
cat $HOME/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
for that.
3 Likes
Here is the entire content of the file:
$ cat $HOME/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintfull</const>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba">
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
<const>lcdnone</const>
</edit>
<edit mode="assign" name="dpi">
<double>102</double>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
<const>hintslight</const>
</edit>
</match>
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
The other thing to check is whether the recent fontconfig update needs the conf.d symlinks to be put back into place.
/etc/fonts/conf.avail moved to /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail, so there are two options:
ls -l /etc/fonts/conf.d and recreate any dangling symlinks (better)
Put a "redirection" symlink in place, sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail /etc/fonts/conf.avail (worse)
5 Likes
I am sorry I didn't understand.
$ ls -l /etc/fonts/conf.d  49.33.228.153  ─╯
total 196
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 124 Oct 22 19:25 00kde.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 44 Jun 19 2020 10-hinting-slight.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-hinting-slight.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Nov 13 01:05 10-powerline-symbols.conf -> ../conf.avail/10-powerline-symbols.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 48 Jun 19 2020 10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jun 29 2020 10-symbols.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-symbols.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 47 Jun 19 2020 20-unhint-small-vera.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-vera.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 44 Jun 19 2020 30-metric-aliases.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Jun 19 2020 40-nonlatin.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/40-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jun 19 2020 45-generic.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/45-generic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jun 19 2020 45-latin.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/45-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 7 17:19 46-noto-mono.conf -> ../conf.avail/46-noto-mono.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 7 17:19 46-noto-sans.conf -> ../conf.avail/46-noto-sans.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Dec 7 17:19 46-noto-serif.conf -> ../conf.avail/46-noto-serif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jun 19 2020 49-sansserif.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/49-sansserif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Jun 19 2020 50-user.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/50-user.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jun 19 2020 51-local.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/51-local.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Sep 8 2020 59-lohit-devanagari.conf -> ../conf.avail/59-lohit-devanagari.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jun 19 2020 60-generic.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/60-generic.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jun 19 2020 60-latin.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/60-latin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Sep 8 2020 65-0-lohit-marathi.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-0-lohit-marathi.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Sep 8 2020 65-0-lohit-nepali.conf -> ../conf.avail/65-0-lohit-nepali.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Jun 19 2020 65-fonts-persian.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/65-fonts-persian.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Jun 19 2020 65-nonlatin.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/65-nonlatin.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-assamese.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-assamese.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-bengali.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-bengali.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-devanagari.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-devanagari.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-gujarati.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-gujarati.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-gurmukhi.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-gurmukhi.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-hindi.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-hindi.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-kannada.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-kannada.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 47 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-kashmiri@devanagari.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-kashmiri@devanagari.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-konkani.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-konkani.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-maithili.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-maithili.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-odia.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-odia.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-oriya.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-oriya.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-punjabi.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-punjabi.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-sindhi@devanagari.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-sindhi@devanagari.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 43 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-tamil-classical.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-tamil-classical.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-tamil.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-tamil.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Sep 8 2020 66-lohit-telugu.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-lohit-telugu.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 7 17:19 66-noto-mono.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-noto-mono.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 7 17:19 66-noto-sans.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-noto-sans.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Dec 7 17:19 66-noto-serif.conf -> ../conf.avail/66-noto-serif.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Sep 8 2020 67-lohit-malayalam.conf -> ../conf.avail/67-lohit-malayalam.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Jun 19 2020 69-unifont.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/69-unifont.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Jun 29 2020 75-yes-terminus.conf -> ../conf.avail/75-yes-terminus.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jun 19 2020 80-delicious.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/80-delicious.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 Jun 19 2020 90-synthetic.conf -> /etc/fonts/conf.avail/90-synthetic.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 967 Jun 19 2020 README
What should I do next?
XOSPHERE:
I didn’t understand
Which part?
All the information necessary to fix the symlinks is present in my reply.
Also, which version of fontconfig do you have installed? It should be 2:2.13.93-4 by now, when was the last time you updated?
2 Likes
