[ft] how to build freetype so that it matches 1 of 2 observed behaviours

[Paul Davis]

hi folks. new (and likely) temporary list member. the following URL
shows an image with two juxtaposed versions of the program "ardour":

    http://ardour.org/afonts.png

here is a view with slightly different font scaling:

   http://ardour.org/afonts-100.png

the two renderings come from two different versions of libfreetype -
all other variables are identical. the lower image uses the stock
freetype build on fedora 13; the upper one uses a build from source of
2.3.12 (but is identical when 2.3.11, 2.3.5 or 2.4.4 are used), with
no options changed in the source. the same is true if i enable
subpixel rendering in any of the source versions i tried.

if i install fedora's "freeworld" variant of freetype, the system
rendering will match the source build.

i consider the upper section of the image to have inferior rendering
than the lower one. i'm trying to figure out how to build a version of
freetype that will render like the lower section. as an experiment, i
fetched fedora's source rpm, ripped out the tarball, applied all their
patches, and built that. this too rendered like the source builds i
had tried before.

i wonder if anyone recognizes any aspects of the rendering in the
lower section of the image that would provide clues on how to get this
version.

many thanks,
Paul Davis
Ardour/JACK