[rescue] Sun Kit Needed for EE Student Here

[Don Y]

Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Tue, 09 May 2006 @ 08:40 -0700, Don Y said:
> 
>> Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>> Can you do sub-pixel rendering on an X Terminal?
>> Most probably *not* -- at least not on *mine* (as they are old
>> and so the server software is also quite old).  
> 
> I was just curious. I haven't had one for awhile now.

Though, having said that, I recall building an Xrender
*package* (as a dependancy for <mumblemumble>)...

>> But, the quality
>> of the fonts on my heads is comparable to that of a Windows
>> machine, etc.  
> 
> Not surprising, since Windows fonts are pretty ugly.

I've not found it an issue.  Most of the work I do on
my Windows machine is either DTP (in which case, there
are far too many typefaces to be concerned with), CAD
(in which case there are far too *few*!  :> ) or
purely graphic (in which case there are NONE!  ;> )

The only horrendous font issues I found on the X terminals
(which is where I spend all my time) was trying to support
CDE with bad font matches (solved by copying Sun's fonts onto
my font server)

> I personally hate anti-aliased fonts. For years it was the only way to avoid a
> lot of fonts looking terrible on a screen, but it look fuzzy to me and wasn't
> easy on the eyes for long-term viewing.

Yup.  It *is* fuzzy.  On purpose.  :<  I'd rather live with The Jaggies

>> (which, for reviewing DTP output is more than adequate -- and, overkill for
>> the text windows that I spend my time in).
> 
> I spent most of my time in terminal windows too, and that's specifically
> why I use pixpixel rendering for fonts.

Oh.  I find I can use very small fonts without any problems.
But, they are just *plain* (unadorned) fonts.  No other
attributes applied (italic, bold, etc.).  E.g., emacs doesn't
fare well when it wants to syntax hilight...

> The difference in how my eyes feel after a few hours is rather pronounced.

Get up and take a break!  :>  It's GOOD for you to do, anyway
(let your eyes focus on something besides a close-in screen).
I have found that color displays are much harder on my eyes.
My laptop is particularly annoying  :<

But, the monochrome terminals seem like crisper images.

>> I guess by NOT working in a "desktop" I don't see a lot of the issues
>> that you perhaps face (?)
> 
> I think people are making more out of this than I said.
> 
> My original issue was just that when not running the desktop, I lost
> good rendering of fonts and widgets.

But that would be the desktop code?

> The font problem turned out to be Gnome stomping on my XFT configuration
> somehow.  That's all working fine.
> 
> The other issue is how programs draw their widgets. Some of them just look
> terrible outside of their environment. They also sometimes lose functions like
> full CUPS support.

Yup.  In my case, since I don't work in a desktop, those
apps just look silly "on their own".

> I'd like to see uniform application support in X, and see it without having to
> have a million different competing widget libraries loaded.

Fresco would have been an interesting rehash.

"Standards are great -- everbody should have one!"