Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Upgrade Libcairo2 For Better Fonts

Squeeze has libcairo2 version 1.8.10-6 : http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/libcairo2 .

For better fonts you need libcairo2 from backports.
Add these two lines to your sources.list :
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main
deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-release


Follow the instructions at http://mozilla.debian.net/ for adding the archive key to your apt keyring.

Then :
apt-get update
apt-get install -t squeeze-backports libcairo2


Libcairo2 will be upgraded to version 1.10.2-6~bpo60+1 .

apt-cache policy libcairo2
libcairo2:
Installed: 1.10.2-6~bpo60+1
Candidate: 1.10.2-6~bpo60+1
Version table:
*** 1.10.2-6~bpo60+1 0
500 http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports/iceweasel-release amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
1.8.10-6 0
990 http://mirrors.nl.kernel.org/debian/ squeeze/main amd64 Packages


Add these lines to your .fonts.conf :

<!-- lcdnone, lcddefault, lcdlight, lcdlegacy -->
<match target="font">
<edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
<const>lcddefault</const>
</edit>
</match>


You can also download libcairo version 1.10.2-6~bpo60+1 from here : http://mozilla.debian.net/pool/iceweasel-release/c/cairo/
Just install it with :
dpkg -i <packagename>

See also a former post : http://debian-bits-and-snips.blogspot.com/2011/03/run-iceweasel-4-on-squeeze.html .

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tip. I installed but don't see any difference. My primary need is to make gvim fonts look better as I use it very often for programming. I get this feel that I need to compile gvim with the libcairo2-dev package to see any difference. What do you think? Have you tried it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had to install it ( vim-gtk ) to see what you mean, but the fonts look the same as in other gnome applications.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ok, I typically use gvim with 'Courier New' on Windows for programming and was expecting similar view on Linux with the updates. Not able to get that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Try the xfonts-terminus package instead of courrier. It's monospaced and easy on the eye.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Do you know where to download libpixman-1-dev-0_0.22.0-1.1~bpo60+1_amd64.deb from?

    I had installed libpixman-1-0_0.22.0-1.1~bpo60+1_amd64 from your above provided link but it's no longer available under mozilla.debian.net. A search on the net proved futile as well :(

    ReplyDelete
  6. No sorry, I don't know. Libpixman-1-dev is now version 0.24.0-1~bpo60+1

    apt-cache policy libpixman-1-dev
    libpixman-1-dev:
    Installed: 0.24.0-1~bpo60+1
    Candidate: 0.24.0-1~bpo60+1
    Version table:
    *** 0.24.0-1~bpo60+1 0
    100 http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports/ squeeze-backports/main amd64 Packages
    100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
    0.16.4-1 0
    990 http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/debian/ squeeze/main amd64 Packages

    ReplyDelete

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