unity-design team mailing list archive

[Peterson Silva <peterson.235@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yeah, although that doesn't necessarily refer to that problem. 3 of the
first 10 results were about bad fonts on google earth, how many might be
about wine apps...

Only one of them was about ugly fonts in firefox, and it was on Hardy =]

*Peterson*
*http://petercast.net*



On 20 October 2011 20:10, topdownjimmy <topdownjimmy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> As a quick aside: http://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu+ugly+fonts
> returns over 1 million results.
>
> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Peterson Silva <peterson.235@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > Is this "ubuntu has bad fonts" really "a thing"? I mean, the Joe user
> can't
> > barely tell Times New Roman from Arial oO
> >
> > I just found this curious, but I agree with everything, and we should
> focus
> > on polishing fonts and everything --- it's an aspect that makes the
> system
> > look slick and all. I just found it funny because I've never read a lot
> of
> > complaints about the fonts in Ubuntu being bad...
> >
> > Peterson
> > http://petercast.net
> >
> >
> > On 20 October 2011 15:34, topdownjimmy <topdownjimmy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> [Apologies if this is a duplicate message; I sent this first with an
> >> email address other than the one in my Launchpad profile.]
> >>
> >> I'm not positive that desktop typography falls within the scope of
> >> Ayatana, but this list is my best guess.
> >>
> >> Currently in /etc/fonts/conf.d/30-metric-aliases.conf (and for as long
> >> as I can remember in Ubuntu), Liberation Sans is specified as an
> >> acceptable alternative for Arial, and Liberation Serif as an
> >> acceptable alternative for Times New Roman. The historical reason for
> >> this is that the Liberation set of typefaces was specifically designed
> >> to be metric-compatible with its corresponding Microsoft fonts (Arial,
> >> Times New Roman, and Courier New).
> >> (http://press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/)
> >>
> >> However, it's my opinion that having this metric-compatibility is not
> >> as important as having similar letterforms. Especially if we are
> >> paying special attention to aesthetics in 12.04
> >> (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/810), I think these font
> >> substitutions are something we should reconsider. It seems as though
> >> these font configuration files haven't been updated in a while, as
> >> they include some fonts that aren't even included in Ubuntu anymore
> >> (e.g., Thorndale AMT, Albany AMT). FreeSans and FreeSerif, as opposed
> >> to the Liberation set, are almost indistinguishable from Arial and
> >> Times.
> >>
> >> A major reason that I think this change would be important is the web;
> >> so many sites are now calling for Arial/Helvetica that in Ubuntu are
> >> rendered in Liberation Sans, and to someone coming from Windows or Mac
> >> OS, this can look very alien. Sites like Google/Gmail just don't look
> >> *right*, and this lends itself to the common belief that "Linux has
> >> bad fonts." This becomes even more important as so much of what people
> >> do on a computer now is within the browser.
> >>
> >> Another shortcoming of the current font config files, as regards the
> >> web, is that there are no substitutes defined for many common fonts
> >> called for in stylesheets -- Lucida Grande/Sans, Georgia (!!),
> >> Verdana, Tahoma, etc. Facebook, in particular, has a font stack that
> >> calls for Lucida first, Tahoma second, and Verdana third. A new Ubuntu
> >> user who goes to Facebook for the first time will see *none* of these
> >> alternatives. (Although, in truth, they will most likely see DejaVu
> >> Sans, which is a "close enough" approximation of Verdana, as far as
> >> free fonts go. Still, it will be jarring not to see some variant of
> >> Lucida.)
> >>
> >> In fact, there are many substitutions that could be taking place, but
> >> currently are not. There are many free font packages that could supply
> >> much greater versatility for fonts on the web:
> >>
> >> * Georgia -  Bitstream Charter
> >> * Verdana - DejaVu Sans
> >> * Lucida - Luxi Sans [xfonts-scalable]
> >> * Gill Sans - Gillius [ttf-adf-gillius]
> >> * Baskerville - Baskervald [ttf-adf-baskervald]
> >> * Franklin Gothic - UnDotum [ttf-unfonts-core]
> >> * Futura / Century Gothic - URW Gothic Uralic [ttf-uralic], Beteckna
> >> [ttf-beteckna], or Universalis [ttf-adf-universalis]
> >> * Palatino - URW Palladio L Roman
> >> * Goudy Bookletter - Goudy Bookletter [ttf-goudybookletter]
> >>
> >> Granted, adding these font packages to the default install would
> >> increase the size of the install disc, and I haven't done the math,
> >> but some of them are already included, and a couple of the others
> >> aren't very large at all. Also, there might be licensing issues that
> >> make some of these packages not technically "free," but I haven't
> >> researched that.
> >>
> >> Things *do* look more "authentic" with the msttcorefonts package
> >> installed, but that is, of course, not free, and thus shouldn't be
> >> included on the install disc.
> >>
> >> Finally, the default serif and sans-serif fonts in Firefox are set to
> >> DejaVu Sans and DejaVu Serif; this is also strange, since in Windows
> >> they are Arial and Times New Roman, which bear little similarity to
> >> the DejaVu family. As I stated before, I think FreeSans and FreeSerif
> >> are more similar to Arial and Times, but if metric-compatibility is
> >> really that much of a concern, the defaults should at least be
> >> Liberation.
> >>
> >> In any case I do think *something* can be done to improve the
> >> typographical experience on the web in Ubuntu. Thoughts?
> >>
> >> -Jay
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> >> Post to     : ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> >> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> Post to     : ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>