redhat 8.0/gnome 2 antialiased fonts

[Alexander F Borro <alex borro blueyonder co uk>]

I have just installed redhat 8.0 and thumbs up, congrats a usual with
redhat releases.

I hope that you don't take the following as an offense but that it will
provide constructive criticism. It is the issue of anti aliased fonts.  
In my view and I have asked others their opinion and agreed with me that
the aa fonts somehow don't look quite right in gnome 2.0 apps and the
desktop.  They appear out of focus somewhat and don't make the desktop
look any clearer to me ( Both the same affect on two machines I have
installed.  

Perhaps I am missing the point and it is the type of fonts installed but
from what I can see, if I disable it with GDK_USE_XFT=0 (which I have
put in my .bashrc_profile) and set the sans font size to 9 in
preferences it looks much nicer ( to me anyway).  On top of that it
makes pre-gnome 2 applications like galeon and evolution look more at
home, for instance gnome terminal a gnome 2 app looks identical with the
menus/toolbar as evolution galeon does.

Would it not have been advisable to make to whole desktop look as
consistent as possible?   With the default settings gnome2 and gnome 1.4
apps look too different for my liking and really makes the whole thing
give a way the fact that it is a halfway house between gnome 1.4 and
gnome 2.0. It's an amazing what reactions you get and how users jump 
conclusions if things don't quite look right. After all isn't the aim to
attract as many new gnome users as possible and first impressions are
important in this respect.I am sure there likely going to be other users
with the same question and they probably will not know about such thing
as profiles, GDK_USE_XFT etc.


Is there a way with aa switched on to get those nice thin looking fonts
I have now because it seems to me that anti aliasing only seems to swell
them up, so to speak and leaves pre gnome 2 apps alone with gnome 1.4
looking fonts.

Alexander Borro