no more blurry fonts - a quick guide to disabling antialiased fonts in linux
===

as stated by my older article - <https://dataswamp.org/~lich/musings/bitmap-fonts.html> - i am not a huge fan of 'vector' fonts and blurriness that modern rendering systems cause on standard dpi displays

thank god - i finally learned i am not alone in this - author of this dealt with same problem (but gave no configuration) - https://datagubbe.se/fontfest/

this article is a quick guide how to remove blurry fonts from your system and have nice crisp bitmap fonts everywhere.

1. create fontconfig config file as such (~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf)


```
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>

 <!-- Default fonts -->
 <alias binding="same">
 <family>sans-serif</family>
 <prefer>
 <family>Arial</family>

 </prefer>
</alias>


 <alias binding="same">
 <family>serif</family>
 <prefer>
 <family>Times New Roman</family>

 </prefer>
</alias>


 <alias binding="same">
 <family>monospace</family>
 <prefer>
 <family>Atarist</family>

 </prefer>
</alias>

 <match target="font">
     <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
         <const>none</const>
     </edit>
     <test qual="any" name="size" compare="more">
         <double>1</double>
     </test>
     <test qual="any" name="size" compare="less">
         <double>100</double>
     </test>
     <edit name="antialias" mode="assign">
         <bool>false</bool>
     </edit>
     <edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
         <const>hintfull</const>
     </edit>
 </match>
 </fontconfig>
```

this configuration will disable non-hinted fonts and disable all aliasing making the fonts extremely crisp

2. as you might have noticed, this config will use microsoft corefonts. it is a shame, but they seem
to be the best fontset for this style of usage. if you want open source fonts with decent hinting, please
send an email to me, i am always open to new ideas, new approaches. so obviously - install microsoft corefonts

3. reconfigure your browser (firefox or palemoon) to use these fonts and to not use external fonts. in chromium
this never really works (there is  --disable-remote-fonts option, but does not really help)

4. congratulations, you now can enjoy crisp fonts

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