Mac-like font rendering for Linux

fonts.conf

<?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>false</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>
 <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>

the same thing can be expressed in a minimal, modern ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="antialias"><bool>true</bool></edit>
    <edit name="hinting"><bool>false</bool></edit>
    <edit name="rgba"><const>rgb</const></edit>
    <edit name="lcdfilter"><const>lcddefault</const></edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

Differences from yours:

• Removed duplicate <match> blocks (one block is enough).
• Dropped hintstyle (irrelevant if hinting is off).
• Removed old <dir>~/.fonts</dir> (nowadays ~/.local/share/fonts is auto-scanned).
• Uses modern Fontconfig directory (~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf).

If you drop this file in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf and run:

fc-cache -fv

it’ll apply system-wide for your user.

-- chatgpt 5

there's a few places it can go https://www.freedesktop.org/software/fontconfig/fontconfig-user.html