> The specific font I was focussing on is from > "LiberationMono-Regular.ttf" (attached). I don't *think* it contains > embedded bitmaps?
No, it doesn't. > The confusing part is, I've used the same file on Ubuntu 8, Ubuntu > 10 and Ubuntu 16 and it renders correctly on all of them. It's definitely a bug in the X font setup: The font is treated as either unhinted or autohinted and then rendered as a mono font. FreeType doesn't support this. Monochrome rendering (to be more precise: bi-level rendering) of TrueType fonts in FreeType gives only pleasant results for low resolutions if (a) the font contains proper hints for B/W rendering, and (b) the v35 bytecode engine mode is used. I guess there are special rules of FontConfig setup files in recent GNU/Linux distributions that enforce v40 hinting or auto-hinting for LiberationMono (and maybe all other TrueType fonts). Apparently `xfontsel` can only render in monochrome mode; maybe it is possible to adjust the X font setup for `xfontsel` and friends to enforce v35 hinting? My conclusion: Not a FreeType bug. Werner