Better Ubuntu Fonts
I also like Windows fonts much better than the defaults on any Linux distributions. Well, at least the Windows XP default, Tahoma. (Also, I prefer no antialiasing at all for small font sizes, when using good TrueType fonts. Your mileage may vary!)
These days I find it very easy to get nice fonts in Ubuntu. (Gone are the days of needing to recompile Freetype with a certain option (I forget which) to get them right.)
Steps I took when last installing Ubuntu afresh
- Put your TrueType fonts (.ttf files from Windows installation or e.g. the Microsoft Core Fonts package legally available on the web) in some directory, e.g.
/usr/local/winfonts
. Edit
/etc/fonts/local.config
and add your winfont dir:<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd"> <!-- /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file to configure system font access --> <fontconfig> <!-- Font directory list --> <dir>/usr/local/winfonts</dir> <dir>/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc</dir> </fontconfig>
Run
sudo fc-cache -fv
to rebuild font information cache files. (Nowadays there's no need to create files likefonts.scale
,fonts.dir
orfonts.alias
usingttmkfdir
or other utilities!)
Then configure Tahoma 8 as the default font in your desktop environment (KDE's control centre for me; equally easy in the Gnome equivalent)
And that's it.
Alternative way
Another way is to simply install msttcorefonts
package from Universe and run fc-cache
, as instructed in this post on Ubuntu Blog.
The core fonts package doesn't include Tahoma though. But if you have it from other sources, copying the .ttf files to ~/.fonts/
(or /usr/local/share/fonts
for system wide availability) before running fc-cache
should be sufficient.
I believe the default font is either:
- Windows XP: Tahoma
- Windows Vista / Windows 7: Segoe UI
You may also like Calibri. That's a nice font too.
Since you mentioned you have a windows system, you should be able to grab these licensed fonts without any drama.
I do recommend enabling Sub-pixel smoothing, makes it much easier on your eyes. Unfortunately, Firefox doesn't seem to use sub pixel smoothing, atleast for me.