Fixing Fonts in Debian

Debian fonts are just plain ugly. In fact, Linux fonts in general are pretty ugly. Ubuntu has done a nice job making its fonts look nice, but unfortunately those changes don't always get passed on to other distributions. To make the fonts in Debian look nicer, create a file named .fonts.conf in your home directory with the following contents:

<?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>hintslight</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font">
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
  <match target="font">
    <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

Log out then log back in to apply the changes. The fonts will then look so much nicer.