What is your “basic” list of fonts every linux desktop user should install ?
Liberation fonts, Noto fonts, Deja Vu fonts and Nimbus fonts pretty much. Add in Cantarell too and you are set I would say. Those are the ones you should install for compatibility.
I always install Inter for UI and JetBrains Mono for terminal usage. I find they render way better than pretty much anything else.
Update: Discovered Geist and Geist Mono and they are amazing, I am going to replace Inter and JetBrains Mono from now on: github.com/vercel/geist-font
This isn’t specific to Linux necessarily, but the best free fonts I like the most that I always install regardless of OS are:
- DejaVu (included by default in a lot of Linux distros but not in Windows)
- EB Garamond (a font intended to replicate Garamond but with the Open Font License)
- Inconsolata (a font intended to replicate Consolas but with the Open Font License)
- Noto (also included by default on a lot of Linuxes but not on Windows)
- Vollkorn
Inconsolata is my ride or die font for programming.
Same, love using it for terminal and vscode
Yeah I fucking love that font. Better than Noto Mono because in Inconsolata the zeros have a cross through them and therefore it’s easier to distinguish them from the letter O.
The only downside is that it hasn’t been updated since 2015-12-04 and thus only has “the base ASCII set and … the Latin 1, 2, and 9 complements”. So it works for most English-speaking purposes, but runs into problems if you try to use certain symbols used outside of that context, like other languages or some special characters. I don’t run into it often enough to be too much of a problem, but it is there.
May I introduce you to Nerd fonts you can have your inconsolata and your symbols
Like I said, I don’t really run into it enough to need another piece of software installed on my computer, but that is definitely something I need to keep in the back of my mind. It seems delightful! ^_____^ Thank you!
Also, sorry for the late reply.
For me personally, it’s Victor Mono and Iosevka. Victor Mono for desktop and Iosevka for VSCodium.
Iosevka is so great. Not everyone likes the narrow look. I’ve tried other fonts a couple of times since I stumbled on it a good handfuls of years ago, but I always come back.
You can always compile your own Iosevka and adjust several pieces, I have done that selecting what I consider the best pieces a long time ago.
The compiled font lives in an easy to access internal webserver that I just grab from every computer I use (=
I like both of those, but my terminal and coding are always in MPlus Code
Nice! That font really looked nice through the smartphone. Will try it out in VSCodium when I can. Thanks!
I love a good condensed font:
https://www.programmingfonts.org/#mplus
It doesn’t support ligatures though.
Thanks for the link 🙂
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Just looked at the screenshot on the Victor Mono page and the kerning makes me want to rip my eyes out…
Why? 😄
Not OP, but if you look at the Hello World code example, the “HelloWorld” class is visually divided at the l’s and the o and W are glued together. Looks more like “Hel l oWorld”.
That’s because Victor Mono are a tabular font meaning equal width no matter what character it is :) I find it nice.
No, that is not a valid reason to look that bad, JetBrains Mono is a fixed with font and it manages to get the characters evenly distributed.
If it works for you, that’s fine. You are right with the monospaced font being limited to the boxes. Jetbrains mono uses ligatures to overcome certain spacing limits. On top of this some characters are designed to connect better to their surroundings, as the „l“ mentioned, which is not just a stroke, but connects to the neighboring characters with the top and bottom strokes.
Computer Modern, the font of LaTeX
Comic neue, must have for all the important legal documents.
I use Fira Sans and Fira Mono for everything.
Chad
I commonly use the following font families:
Hack
Noto
Inter
Helvetica
Montserrat
Space Grotesk
Times New Roman
Atkinson Hyperlegible
Cormorant (Garamond)
Just started using the Inter Display fonts and IBM Plex Mono fonts for my GNOME desktop.
Both are packaged in Debian.
There is even a discussion about making Inter the default font for GNOME: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/-/issues/52
Libertinus Serif (much nicer Times New Roman-ish serif text font. Huge amount of glyphs, open source font license, great to read on display and on print)
Lato (Sans font which imo compliments Libertinus Serif really good. More for short texts, headlines etc. I wouldn’t recommend it as a UI font. Also permissive font license.)
Mscorefonts.
Remind me to send a link, the only way to get them seems to be from Windows, pretty stupid. Calibri, Times, Cambria, damn Comic Sans, these.
If you don’t want to get them from microsoft, you can purchase a license elsewhere. Microsoft allows them to be distributed freely as long as the files are not modified. That’s why they are always packaged in an executable installer.
Hahah purchase a license. I dont get it, these are just ttf files that are needed for basic compatibility
Those fonts are not free. They may be just ttf files, but there is a massive amount of work that goes into creating a font with unicode support. If you just want fonts for basic compatibility, you can use open source fonts with compatible metrics such as the Liberation fonts or use the microsoft core fonts that haven’t been updated in 20 years.
Yes I know. But I mean microsoft will not get poor if we share their proprietary fonts they set as default on all documents.
Btw how are fonts integrated in PDFs? You can load the documents without the fonts installed
Many fonts have a license that allows them to be embedded in a pdf. Newer fonts usually have a flag that tells the software if the font can be embedded or not, not all software respects that flag though. Older fonts don’t have the flag and will embed even if you are not allowed to embed them.
Thanks for the info! So the entire .ttf package is embedded, or every single character as SVG? Damn that sounds like a waste of space compared to HTML where fonts with alternatives and fallback also work.
Typically, only the glyphs for the characters used in the PDF are embedded.
Noto for desktop apps. Inter is nice too. Roboto was a long time favorite of mine too.
Iosevka for monospace. Hack and Fira Code/Mono are great as well.
These are the ones I install on every system:
ttf-caladea 20200113-3
ttf-carlito 20230509-1
ttf-fira-code 6.2-2
ttf-liberation 2.1.5-1
ttf-linux-libertine-g 20120116-7
adobe-source-sans-fonts 3.052-1
adobe-source-serif-fonts 4.005-1
noto-fonts-cjk 20230817-1
noto-fonts-extra 1:23.11.1-1
Currently trying otf-monaspace though and I quite like it.
I really like cascadia-code for my terminal (nerdfonts.com has the version with all the ligatures)
I don’t do any graphic design or anything like that, so the fonts that come with any modern distro seem to do the trick - maybe I’d install ttf-ms-fonts for better compatibility when dealing with files across multiple operating systems.
I just left the defaults
Apple’s San Francisco including New York and Mono Nerd cuz they gud >:)
I like SF Pro but I use Inter because of it OSL
