Re: Build from source, get terrible fonts

At Sat, 22 Jun 2024 01:34:44 -0000 (UTC) Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:

 
Luc <luc@sep.invalid> wrote:

I built and installed Tcl and Tk 8.6.13 from source. And it works.
 
Except the fonts. The fonts look awful. Maybe they don't have antialias,
maybe it's something else, I'm not sure. I just know they look awful.
Really awful.
 
I also have 8.6.6 from my distro's repository and a compact/portable
version of 8.6.13 in FreeWrap, and their fonts look fine. Only my
compiled Tk looks bad.
 
Then I tried 8.6.14 and had the exact same problem.
 
Do you people have any idea why?

 
Run an ldd on the wish which has "good fonts" and on the one that has
"bad fonts".  Compare what is linked.  I bet you find the "bad fonts"
wish does not link to libfreetype.
 

What do you suggest I do to pinpoint the cause of the problem?

 
The above.
 

In case you're wondering, I configured it like this:
 
$ ./configure --disable-symbols --enable-shared --enable-threads
--enable-64bit --prefix /opt/tcltk8614
--with-tcl=/home/luc/newtcl/tcl8.6.14/unix

 
Check ./configure --help.
 
See if there is an "enable truetype" or "enable freetype" option.
 
If yes, rebuild while specifying that option.  If you get errors, then
make sure you have the freetype "development" package installed (too
many debian/ubuntu derived distros separate everything into "use" an
"development" packages, and then omit installing the "development"
packages (which made /some/ sense years ago when a 4G hard drive was
considered large).  But now, the result is things like 'true type'
support won't be auto-detected by configure unless the development
packages for it are first installed, leading to oddness like what you
just experienced -- the distro package works fine, your custom built
one has weirdness.

It is pretty "standard" for both Debian and RedHat based distros to split off
the "development" library packages.  Under Debian for most lib<mumble> package
there is a corresponding lib<mumble>-dev package and under RedHat for some
<mumble> packages there is a <mumble>-devel package.  I helieve the idea is
the difference between a "user" experience and a "developer" experience and
keeping things lean for servers and desktop users, by not cluttering things up
with the header and linker files (and whatever else is needed for building
applications).

Debian further complicates things but not necessarily exactly matching the
lib<mumble> with the lib<mumble>-dev, which can be something of a bitch to get
the -dev package you need installed.  Things like lib<mumble>-dev goes with
lib<mymble>N, where N is the major version number.

                                                                                 
 

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