… gosh, I always forget what I do to my font configs on my machines.
KDE: Enable Antialiasing/Subpixel hinting RGB/Style Medium
Fontconfig system wide: Replace Helvetica with something readable in .fonts.conf
Link 10-autohint.conf and 10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
To be never forgotten again for my fonts to look gorgeous.
Since I gave in and switched from Sidux to the new Kubuntu 8.04 - simply because Sidux just was too bleeding edge for my work rig, too many kernel switches and the new 2.6.25 totally borking my Cisco VPN Client - I had to install Lotus Notes 8.01 … Again. And it was horror again. So just for future reference I should write down what made it work.
Stuff you need to install/do on a stock Kubuntu:
# sudo apt-get install libstdc++5 libgnomecanvas2-0 \ libgnomeprint2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-0 \ libgnomevfs2-0 libgnome2-0 libgnomeui-0 # cp <notesinstalldatadirectory>/deploy/install.xml /root # sudo mkdir -p /etc/lotus/notes # sudo touch /etc/lotus/notes/notesrc
Launch Installer, install away. Should work. At least did the job for me.
about:config
layout.css.dpi
set to either 72 or 96
Beyond me how that could slip through Q&A.
And why o why is there still no decent Antialiasing enabled by default?
System Settings/Appearance/Fonts, enable Antialiasing, Subpixel-Hinting RGB, Hinting Style slight.
… at least when using Sidux. 
I was quite annoyed yesterday because my KDE fonts looked simply crispy and marvellous, yet the ones in Pidgin and Iceweasel/Firefox (pretty much the only GTK apps I use) looked like shit. gtk-qt-engine does a good job keeping my fonts the same, but there was simply no anti-aliasing going on in GTK apps which I seriously hate. I am used to AA. I want it everywhere!
Diving into /etc/fonts it was pretty obvious that I was missing one thing there….
ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
This turns on the Auto-Hinter systemwide - something which you do for your KDE fonts in Control Center, but usually can’t do without installing a crap ton of GNOME dependencies for GTK apps. This does it. And boy does it make a difference.
Thanks to some helpful comment at osnews.com I tried changing my KDE fonts to the excellent Bitstream Vera Sans Fonts with medium Subpixel Hinting enabled and boy… Did that make a difference. Crispy, excellent looking fonts that you can actually read a mile away now. Makes me wonder why no distribution I ever tried has those settings as default.
