This is driving me crazy

I have this problem on only Firefox,Chrome is fine.I have tried many things searched google but could not make the fonts look better.It happens on Unity and on 2D and also on XFCE.I am putting a screenshot to show the problem.I tried to uncheck the ''Allow pages to choose their own fonts....''It did not help too.

 

Try running Firefox in safe mode?
Make a new Firefox profile?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data

 

Tried safe mode nothing changed.Made a new profile nothing changed.I do not have a special video card.

 

That quote is from my .gtkrc.xfce4 file that I posted. The only section that refers to fonts is for the xfce panel which lists Droid Sans Bold 11. I don't see how that could have affected Firefox's fonts. If you're having trouble just remove it. I also don't see how it could effect Unity nor Unity 2D since both use gtk-3.0.

Hope you solve your problem, Cet. Best of luck.

Later...

 

No, but if I had to guess I'd say you've got a graphics driver that's not quite right. You've got ubuntu 12.04?

 

I have Ubuntu 12.04 I did not have this kind of problem on 10.04.I do not have any proprietary drivers on my system.

 

Does that mean you're opposed to proprietary drivers? Or you mean you simply haven't had to install any?

IMO you should search ubuntuforums.org in the hardware forum for your graphics card, see if there are any issues or special drivers you need. Or at least you could eliminate that as the problem.

I don't know what else would cause the problem you describe. Unless you've got a special desktop theme or something installed.

 

I don't think OP is referring to the substance of your quote and I'm not sure OP has implemented your suggestions. I think it's just coincidence that the particular quote was used. I think that OP wants us to notice the malformed letters. See c in gtkrc. (Verbosity, used wisely, has its virtues.)

What uses gtk-3.0 and doesn't is more to do with the actual program, from what I understand. If I tweak /user/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, for example, changes made there will affect certain apps, the gtk-3.0 ones, and not the others. Similarly, tweaking /user/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc shows up the ones still affected by gtk-2.0, Firefox and LibreOffice being two popular examples.

In conclusion to this OT post, Ubuntu 12.04 still comes with gtk-2.0 apps and their gtk-2.0 "behavior" is evident even in a Unity 3D or 2D session. A little more digression re. Xfce 4.10 and gtk-3.0 is here:

Source: the gtk3 section here.

 

But OP has no problem with Chrome, just Firefox. That's why I didn't think about stuff like drivers and cards.

I wonder if OP has done something to some fonts packages?

 

You probably are correct in that statement. It's just using a quote that I made drew my attention. With reference to gtk-2.0 and gtk-3.0 under Unity...I have yet to run across an example where gtk-2.0 was employed. All the tweaks I've learned relate to gtk-3.0. Obviously, I need to look into this further (I've never had the need to tweak LibreOffice nor Firefox under 12.04 so far).

Later...

 

You're fortunate that you don't need to tweak Firefox or LibreOffice

While many of us use style sheets, personas, themes, whatever to make Firefox look the way we want, you can look at this code:

Code:

gtk-color-scheme = "base_color:#4573a0\nfg_color:black\ntooltip_fg_color:#a2e5fb\nselected_bg_color:#003263\nselected_fg_color:#a2e5fb\ntext_color:black\nbg_color:#4573a0\ntooltip_bg_color:#000000\nlink_color:#f07746"

It's the very first line of gtkrc for the relevant Xfce theme you're using. For me, it's over here: /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc. Provided you don't have overriding rules in your ./gtkrc-2.0 (or .gtkrc.xfce4 or related) and styles, or personas or themes specific to Firefox, you could play with the values to see that they do, in fact, affect things like Firefox, LibreOffice and even Thunar (in an Xfce session).

 

Have a look here

If you haven't got one create a .font.conf file in your home directory and paste the configuration shown.

Alternatively here is another configuration:-

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
<const>rgb</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
<const>hintfull</const>
</edit>
</match>
<match target="font" >
<edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

For good measure refresh fonts cache. fc-cache -f -v

 

Impressive stuff! But I noticed reference to GNOME. Would it help in an Xfce session? (I'm not going to try it out because I'm not having the problem but I hope it helps cet.)

 

First of all I would like to thank for all the answers.
I chose that quote because there is nothing special to it,I just wanted to show the letter distortion.
I am not against the proprietary drivers,but I do not have any special nvidia or ati card to use the special drivers.If I had one I would use it.
I have the letter distortion problem only on Firefox on XFCE.The reason I am using XFCE over Ubuntu is that I had those distortions on the whole system while using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.I did not have any problems on 10.04.
The funny thing is that everytime I boot into the system one or 2 letters are distorted.For ex:I boot and have ''c and b'' letters are distorted.Next time ''x and d''.
From what I have read here I think there is some conflict about gtk-3 and my PC.I love Unity but because of this problem I am using XFCE.
I am posting the screenshot of my system specs and also you can see the letter ''i'' distortion there.(On Ubuntu not XFCE)

 

There must be a bug affecting the Intel drivers.But since the drivers are already installed I do not know how to solve this issue.

 

I suggest that you add the X Updates ppa. Might solve your problem.

 

Tried it no problems.

Some folks also suggest deleting the three files that start with a 10 in /etc/fonts/conf.d
followed by sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig.

tlu has provided the best solution (I think). Can't wait to see if it solves cet's problem.

(Obviously not only in Firefox as demonstrated by cet's screenshot)

 

Added the PPA updated Xorg drivers but still the same

 

Just in case ... did you restart the PC?

 

Yes I restarted twice

 

Could you point out where exactly?

Also, to recap your present problem ...
You have Ubuntu 12.04 installed. On top of that you have Xfce? Is that 4.8 or 4.10? And your problem is evident only with Firefox and not with Chrome?
You don't see the problem with text editors?
What about in word processors and spreadsheets?
What about the menu drop downs in Firefox?

Could you please mention the version numbers, just for the sake of completeness?

 

Coming back to this point, IMO, Firefox is not a gtk-3.0 app and neither is Chrome..

 

I have Ubuntu 12.04 installed.On top of that I have XFCE 4.8
On XFCE my problem is only with firefox,not with chrome.No problem with text editors,and firefox drop down menu.Firefox is 13.0.1

But On Ubuntu or 2D I have the problem everywhere in every menu.Chrome firefox,system menus etc.

 

Just curious but do you see

Code:

ttf-dejavu-core					install
ttf-dejavu-extra				install
ttf-freefont					install
ttf-mscorefonts-installer			install
ttf-ubuntu-font-family				install

when you run something like

Code:

dpkg --get-selections > ~/Desktop/installed-software

 

Still sounds like a driver to me, even more so after seeing the last 2 sentences. You don't have to have a special graphics card to need a driver. Any kind of graphics card (built into the Motherboard or separate) needs the correct driver. I think the one you've got works OK but obviously isn't exactly right.