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

Fri May 13 17:45:26 CEST 2011

On 13 May 2011 12:09, Buchan Milne <bgmilne at staff.telkomsa.net> wrote:
+>
+> 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.
+
+Anssi has already added that patch to the Mageia freetype2 package
+about 2-3 months ago.
+
+[...]
+
+-- 
+Ahmad Samir
+