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

[Buchan Milne]

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