Fontconfig - Nov 2005 - Re: How Do I anti-alias text only larger than a certain pixel?

Put the following in ~/.fonts.conf (for yourself) or /etc/fonts/local.conf
(for the whole system):

--- cut here ---
<fontconfig>
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="size"
compare="less_eq"><int>12</int></test>
        <edit name="antialias"
mode="assign"><bool>false</bool></edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>
--- cut here ---

If you already have such a file, cut out just the <match>...</match>
part and put it between the existing <fontconfig> tags (obviously).

Change the number 12 to suit your taste.  In general fontconfig has 
a (perhaps too) sophisticated system for tweaking the fonts applications
use based on all sorts of rules and calculations.  See "man
fontconfig"
for the full guts; search for the "CONFIGURATION FILE FORMAT" section.

Note there isn''t a lot of "user level" documentation;
it''s all pretty
developer oriented at the moment.  I tried to add this answer to the FAQ 
on the Wiki but I can''t get it to accept my login.  

Maybe something like this should be the default, since freetype''s 
antialiased rendering really sucks at small pixel sizes?

Dan