[Mageia-dev] why not disable bytecode interpreter in freetype2 ?

Fri May 13 12:09:17 CEST 2011

On Friday, 13 May 2011 11:12:41 Zé wrote:
+> 2011/5/13 Zé <mmodem00 at gmail.com>:
+> > 2011/5/13 Dimitrios Glentadakis <dglent at gmail.com>:
+> >> Στις Παρασκευή 13 Μάιος 2011 00:39:55 Zé γράψατε:
+> >>> 2011/5/12 Dick Gevers <dvgevers at xs4all.nl>:
+> >>> > On Thu, 12 May 2011 13:20:39 +0200, Dimitrios Glentadakis wrote about
+
+> >>> perl -pi -e 's|#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER|/\*
+> >>> #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER  \*/|'
+> >>> include/freetype/config/ftoption.h
+> >>> 
+> >>> 
+> >>> dont forget to also increase Release to avoid conflicts with existant
+> >>> freetype2, and then build the package.
+> >> 
+> >> Why do all these things when you can simply add an entry in the
+> >> font.conf file ?
+> > 
+> > Thats a fact, but hat should happen is that freetype2 should have
+> > bytecode interpreter disabled by default, since so far users prefer
+> > it.
+> 
+> Seams Fedora choosed to finally fix it, it reverted freetype2 with a
+> patch to disable bytecode interpreter. ->
+> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=547532
+
+No, this is not what is covered in this bug report.
+
+Firstly, here are the non-problems:
+1)The bytecode interpreter *can* make fonts look better, *if* they have 
+hinting in the fonts. Not all ttf fonts have hinting, but AFAIK all the MS 
+fonts *do* have hinting.
+
+So, historically, the recommended approach was to use the PLF freetype *if* 
+you had imported MS fonts (e.g. from a dual-boot Windows installation).
+
+2)The Freetype autohinter was implemented later, and improves things for 
+unhinted fonts, but hinted fonts still looked better with the bytecode 
+interpreter.
+
+
+This is the problem:
+3)If the bytecode interpreter was enabled, auto-hinting was disabled (or, 
+could be, for 'medium' and 'heavy' hinting settings) for unhinted fonts.
+
+The Fedora bug isn't about disabling the bytecode interpreter, but by still 
+allowing auto-hinting for unhinted fonts if the bytecode interpreter.
+
+*This* is the right fix. Your insistence to *disable* the bytecode interpreter 
+(leaving users with *no* options, in case they need hinted fonts) is the wrong 
+fix.
+
+But, thanks for the pointer to the bug, which points to the patches.
+
+> Why dont we also do the same thing?
+> 
+> Since theres users complaining about it, why not solve it once for all?
+
+Regards,
+Buchan
+