[Bug 1722508] Re: Font hinting appears broken on 17.10 beta

[Woko]

I had the same Problem. The monospace-font in konsole looked ugly after upgrade from 17.04.
Same with freetype 2.8.1.
Then I downgraded libfreetype to 2.6.3 as HorstBort mentioned, and konsole looks nice again.
Here the description how I managed it:

1. add 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty main restricted
universe multiverse' in '/etc/apt/sources.list'

2. create the file '/etc/apt/preferences' with the following contents:
 ---
 Package: libfreetype6:amd64
 Pin: version 2.6.3*
 Pin-Priority: 1001

 Package: *
 Pin: release v=17.04, l=Ubuntu
 Pin-Priority: -1

 Package: libfreetype6:i386
 Pin: version 2.6.3*
 Pin-Priority: 1001

 Package: *
 Pin: release v=17.04, l=Ubuntu
 Pin-Priority: -1
 ---

3. apt-get update

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1722508

Title:
  Font hinting appears broken on 17.10 beta

Status in freetype package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in freetype source package in Artful:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  It appears that font hinting in 17.10 (beta) doesn't work as expected.
  The issue is easy to miss if you have antialiasing enabled system-
  wise. However, if you install "gnome-tweak-tool" and disable
  antialiasing there, the problem becomes obvious.

  Here is how it looks on 17.10 beta:
  https://postimg.org/image/3auqsbkqtn/

  And here is how it looks on my 16.04 machine (and this is pretty much how it's supposed to look):
  https://postimg.org/image/85n5ss3l4b/

  * When comparing the pictures make sure you "Open image in new tab"
  and see them without browser zoom, otherwise the problem may no be
  obvious.

  I suspect that this issue is caused by a bug in some base font
  rendering package that Ubuntu uses (edit: the problem is probably
  caused by FreeType 2.8.0, see my comments below). A couple of months
  ago a similar issue was reported (and promptly fixed) in Chromium
  after they had changed something in FreeType rendering
  (https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=748997).

  lsb_release -rd
  Description: Ubuntu Artful Aardvark (development branch)
  Release:     17.10

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