Firefox is not honoring /etc/fonts/local.conf settings

Update: firefox is totally ignoring also whatever else local.fonts directive (font-size, font-type etc). I had to manually create UserChrome.css to set the font I wish to use.

fixed

Don't understand why but <test name="size"> is ignored

changed with:

<test name="pixelsize">

I can confirm this bug in Firefox in Ubuntu. I've been trying to fix it but no one knows how to fix it:

http://gnomesupport.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=52331
http://gnomesupport.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=50371
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=211827
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=20976&page=13
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=91280&page=3
http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37791
http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39561
http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37182

Ok, I finally found a solution. I updated my XML files, please go ahead and follow this tutorial that will fix fonts for good: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=208396 - Problem was in fontconfig. Now fonts in Firefox are going to look good.

Still a problem at Feisty ?!

Still a problem in Gutsy. (I updated last night.) I attach a screenshot, which I hope illustrates this bug (or maybe I am reporting a new bug? Let me know if that is the case). You can notice that the shapes of the letters are different in the menu bar and in the browser-rendered content. In particular, the shape of the letter ‘a’ is horrible in the latter.

In Feisty this did not seem to be the case unless certain language-support packages were installed (I cannot remember which; sorry). In Gutsy, I think I only have the support for the English-language installed; even then, this is still a problem.

I should add that this is a problem when I am using the typeface Gentium. When I use a typeface such as FreeSerif, there seems to be antialiasing (no problem; I attach screenshot for this).

The setting in my NFS-mounted home directory worked beautifully with the correct rendering in Feisty, but not in Gutsy.

Just upgraded Firefox to ‘Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20071022 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.8’, but problem still remains.

Disabling language-selector.conf in /etc/fonts doesn't help?
mv /etc/fonts/language-selector.conf /etc/fonts/language-selector.conf~

and then restart gnome

I have a network-file-system-mounted version of Firefox 2.0.0.6 in which the problem does not seem to occur. (The problem is there in 2.0.0.8.)

Now, I have upgraded the NFS-mounted version to 2.0.0.8. So both copies are 2.0.0.8, but the NFS-mounted one does not have the font problem, whereas the local one in /usr/bin/firefox does! What could be wrong?

Strangely, if I open a web link from the ‘About Ubuntu’ help page, the font is antialiased. Running
  ps -elf |grep firefox
gave the following:

0 S kaihsu 12709 1 0 85 0 - 438 wait 12:20 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/firefox http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
0 S kaihsu 12722 12709 0 85 0 - 439 wait 12:20 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/firefox/run-mozilla.sh /usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
0 S kaihsu 12726 12722 23 75 0 - 42038 - 12:20 ? 00:00:10 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
0 S kaihsu 12828 12759 0 77 0 - 747 pipe_w 12:21 pts/2 00:00:00 grep firefox

Trying to mimic these commands gave Firefox instances without antialiasing. I am puzzled.

Is this an issue with the firefox-3.0 package available in gutsy universe? Anyone can verify?

Thanks,
 - Alexander

Still problematic in Firefox 2.0.0.10 + Gutsy.

How does one verify this?

Alexander Sack, 2007-11-06 17:35:37-0000:
> Is this an issue with the firefox-3.0 package available in gutsy
> universe? Anyone can verify?

--
2007-12-10 Human Rights Day http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/

Still problematic in Firefox 2.0.0.11 + Gutsy.

to verify: Install the firefox-3.0 package. you should be able to use it without interfering your "normal" firefox install.

Thanks,
  - Alexander

I installed and tested firefox-3.0. I can see the rendering is ‘different’ but the problem still persists.

In about:config, I have:
font.FreeType2.autohinted;true
font.FreeType2.enable;true
font.FreeType2.unhinted;false

and the rendering is very similar to that in the first image I posted on 2007-10-18.

To demonstrate, I attach an image. Notice the difference in the rendering of the letter ‘a’ for example. In the image, you can see how differently gnome-panel, OpenOffice.org 2.3, Firefox 2.0.0.11, and Gran Paradiso (firefox-3.0) render the typeface Gentium with about the same size. OpenOffice.org is the best, then gnome-panel, then the Firefox versions.

Strange: I went to Preferences: Appearances: Fonts, and went into Details to turn Smoothing to Greyscale and Hinting to Slight, and the typefaces looked better (like that in OpenOffice.org)! I consider it resolved this way for me.