I’m using Scrivener on Ubuntu 12.10 now, with the Unity desktop. The font rendering is, if not execrable, then somewhere between sub-optimal and “I want to rip my eyes out.”
The best way I can describe it is that the menus and toolbar look like a Windows program running under Wine without msttcorefonts. The fonts in the text field itself, from Free Serif to Times New Roman are subtly distorted.
I’ve played around with hinting and antialiasing in the systems settings, but Scrivener seems to just ignore those settings entirely.
Font rendering is an issue for me too.
Some fonts are better than others. Try Canterell.
But I agree, the skinning is seriously broken on ubuntu. I don’t care much, but as a company I’d prioritize fixing this on the largest linux distro. It might be an easy fix…
Running Antix Debian Testing v12. I found that unchecking the ‘Font Hinting’ option makes all the difference between wretched distortion, and pretty good display.
Options [F12], then Editor, then under Editor Options, uncheck the “use font hinting” box.
FYI: I had thought that using a type1 font for composition might render better, but it does only slightly. I think it might be more of a function of the X based rendering than anything to do with Scrivener specifically. If you drop your Linux font hinting to “slight”, you’ll see better results all around, especially on LCD screens. The “none” option is actually worse than “slight”.