Through further research it is generally said that the autohinting needs to be turned off by default due to patent restrictions. Those wishing to enable good looking fonts on LCDs may run dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig, selecting appropriate options there. Also pasting a .fonts.conf file from ubuntu forums (search) and adjusting font settings in System->Preferences->Fonts will yield desired results.
** Changed in: fontconfig (Ubuntu) Status: Unconfirmed => Confirmed -- Automatically enable subpixel rendering where appropriate https://launchpad.net/bugs/34937 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs