Use either freetype2-git from the AUR or heftig’s repository which includes Infinality’s ClearType subpixel hinter. A far superior TrueType font hinter compared with the default implementation. See this bug report for more details.
In the following list I have tried to remain objective by comparing only the visual artifacts as described in The Raster Tragedy. These include excessive colour fringing, non-uniform stroke widths and oversampling (blurriness caused by unconstrained anti-alising).
I am also not going to include “bitmap” fonts as the only comparison would concern personal taste.
The configuration file used can be found in my dotfiles repository hosted by github.
- The Good
- They’re good. They hint well. Potatoes!
<dt>The Poor</dt>
<dd>
Some of these fonts are either insufficiently hinted or contain quirks
which make them poor choices for programming. Examples include lettering
with ambiguous meaning such as ‘1’ compared to ‘l’ or ‘0’ to ‘O’. These
fonts should be used at the user’s discretion.
</dd>
<dt>The Bad</dt>
<dd>
Poorly hinted fonts which ascribe many of the problems discussed in the
introduction. Fonts which should be avoided or used with the autohinter.
</dd>
<dt>The Ugly</dt>
<dd>
These fonts fail to render correctly at all. (This is probably my fault
more than the font’s.)
</dd>
Anka/Coder
Monaco
Oxygen Mono
Aurulent
Codename CoderFree 4F
Hermit
Menlo
Monoxil
Panic Sans (Bitstream Vera Sans Mono clone)
Segoe UI Mono
TheSansMono
Anonymous