Bug 2464702

Summary: Significant font rendering regression from 2.13.3
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Darbimantas Marfėnia <yai3n13kp>
Component: freetypeAssignee: Marek Kašík <mkasik>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 44CC: ajax, fonts-bugs, mclasen, mkasik, rstrode, suraj.ghimire7
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Desktop, Regression, Upgrades
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
URL: https://i.ibb.co/7trvTHgb/ezgif-com-animated-gif-maker.gif
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Description Darbimantas Marfėnia 2026-05-02 22:08:35 UTC
Having upgraded Fedora 43 which used FreeType 2.13.3, to Fedora 44, which uses 2.14.3 (issue was present even on 2.14.1), I noticed this regression in how the glyphs are displayed, new rendering feels like something that used to be a thing in Ubuntu 8.04, but certainly not on modern systems.

Current workaround is this:
```
sudo dnf swap freetype freetype --disablerepo="*" --enablerepo=ol10_base

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/freetype.repo > /dev/null << 'EOF'
[ol10_base]
name=Oracle Linux 10 FreeType
baseurl=https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL10/baseos/latest/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol10
priority=200
includepkgs=freetype*
EOF

[fedora]
exclude=freetype*

[updates]
exclude=freetype*

sudo rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol10
sudo cp RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-ol10 /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/
```

I've put an example which displays the problem clearly as a GIF in the URL section.

In my Mousepad example, do notice the kerning anomalies ("ar" in "Search", "ow" in "Following"), crude rendering (like outlying "m" letters), lack of uniformity, and so on.

I find it interesting that other distributions don't have this problem as prominent, as Fedora currently has it, however, it's objectively true that FreeType developers did change some functionality in terms of rendering. I provide the steps to reproduce below, which shows the most noticeable immediate difference. This regression is also visible on Qt applications, such as KDE Connect as well as in PeaZip Qt version.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Mousepad and xsettingsd
2. Set the font to Monospace Regular 9 (aka Noto Sans Mono Regular VF 9)
3. Take a look at text (open a file)
4. Quit Mousepad
5. Create .xsettingsd file in your home folder, then launch xsettingsd
6. Open again, take a look at text
7. There are visible differences, which many applications otherwise have with new FreeType versions
Actual Results:
Rendering looks off, badly rasterized with weird kerning

Expected Results:
Rendering should be closer to Fedora 43

Additional Information:
I tried messing around with Cairo, Harfbuzz and other system libraries, however my testing caught the culprit in FreeType, because downgrading to FreeType 2.13.3, or even FreeType 2.13.2 fixed the issue.

I should also mention that I use a 1080p 27" monitor.

Comment 1 Darbimantas Marfėnia 2026-05-02 22:10:05 UTC
Created attachment 2139126 [details]
Comparison GIF