How to fix font rendering (no anti-aliasing) in Unity global menu and search?

You can adjust the font settings using gnome-tweak-tool . Do note that installing gnome-tweak-tool also installs gnome-shell.

To install gnome-tweak-tool, you can run the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

After installing it, open the tool and go to Fonts. The configurations that you should be changing are 'Hinting' and 'Antialiasing'.

Information about the options available:

The type of antialiasing to use when rendering fonts. Possible values are: "none" for no antialiasing, "grayscale" for standard grayscale antialiasing, and "rgba" for subpixel antialiasing (LCD screens only).

The type of hinting to use when rendering fonts. Possible values are: "none" for no hinting, "slight" for basic, "medium" for moderate, and "full" for maximum hinting (may cause distortion of letter forms).

I have found that to resolve this antialiasing problem you need to

rm ~/.config/dconf/user

In my case I had also lost the background and icons order, but it fixed after a reboot.