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Idea #1113: Use Red Hat Liberation Fonts (They Are Amazingly High Quality)

bug This idea was marked as being not considered for implementation the 25 September 11.
Written by maynoth the 29 Feb 08 at 08:25. Category: Look and Feel. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: Won't implement
Rationale
I recently switched to linux mint, I must say it is very nice and based on gutsy 7.10.

They use the red hat liberation fonts by default and OMG It looks amazing.


The default ubuntu fonts are painful to look at once you know how good it can look.


https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/
Tags: fonts

1376
votes
closed
Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #1113
Written by maynoth the 29 Feb 08 at 08:25.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #1113 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!
14
votes
closed
Solution #2: May be not "default"
Written by sundarvenkata the 3 Apr 09 at 12:56.
But at least include the fonts so that people who need them can use them.

Propose your solution

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maynoth wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 08:30
why on earth is this negative? have you SEEN HOW GOOD THESE FONTS LOOK... I CAN NEVER GO BACK NOW.

They are FOSS.... and they look great...

am I missing something?

Greyor wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 08:36
If you want to download them and use them, that's fine, but I wouldn't make *Red Hat* fonts default for Ubuntu. Isn't that a little counterproductive?

maynoth wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 08:42
well, um... NO

open source is about sharing code.

Don't FOSS borrow code as much as possible.

e_asphyx wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 11:13
I'm using updated Liberation fonts from https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=427791 on all desktops. It looks great! Much better then DejaVu. My recommendation is to include these fonts in Ubuntu and make it default for "Sans", "Serif" and "Monospace" aliases.

azrael wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 12:22
DejaVu fonts are much better, and they have hinting.

Omaha wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 12:41
I use Liberation mostly and some DejaVu in addition. The important thing for me is that there is consistency in fonts and size throughout applications and system.

miscz wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 13:21
Does Liberation have hinting? At the time they were released it wasn't finished and it's a major problem. If they had this they could be installed by default as a replacement for Windows core fonts used for web (mstcorefonts) as this was their main purpose.

tumolsky wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 14:55
Me, and all my friend use liberation fonts. For cyrrilic desktops they don't have alternatives.

I want liberation fonts including in my system by default.


e_asphyx wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 14:59
>Does Liberation have hinting? At the time they were released it wasn't finished

Yes, it does. You can get final version at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=427791

Little Dragon wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 17:18
Greyor wrote: Isn't that a little counterproductive?

With my all respect!

Why should someone "rediscover"/recreate something what exists and it is good or better?

I think Linux developers should combine their efforts and not saying "Oh it is not mine, I should redevelop something same but it is mine." it is wasting of time.

If the fonts from RedHat looks better than use it to give better experience to the users. And use the time remaining from new font development to improve existing components or develop some new.

Of course if someone likes to develop fonts instead of other things do it. If they become better than RedHat's then use them.


maynoth wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 17:43
I've got some other really good idea's I would love some help on. Like an ubuntu credit card which gave the fees to canonical to help with development costs, kind of like linux fund. if your bored please help upvote them if you like them.

e_asphyx wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 18:20
Exactly, Little Dragon!

Jan-Nik wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 21:10
Yes, Liberation has hinting! And it's even better than Dejavu's:

http://watteimdocht.de/jan-nik/liberationdejavu.png

gaspard.leon wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 00:42
wow, they hinted them!! great for a smaller font...

sportman1280 wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 01:11
i like the 1.0.1 version font. the 0.2 that was orginally posted arent what should be considered.

ckontros wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 01:26
There issues as to whether the clauses added to the fonts license make them redistributable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts

Look at the "License controversy" section.

I like Dejavu myself. :P

Estesark wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 02:43
The DejaVu fonts are good enough, I think, but if the proposed fonts are free, open source, and of good quality, then I'd be in favour of including them as an alternative. At the moment, I can't find any other fonts available as a good-quality alternative to DejaVu.

jonathan324 wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 11:27
One of the best ideas I've found here. I think it would be a great improvement to the look and feel of Ubuntu.

RainCT (Ubuntu developer) wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 12:45
I just want to note that the Liberation fonts are now available as a drop-in replacement for mstcorefonts (the package is called 'ttf-liberation').

RainCT (Ubuntu developer) wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 12:45
(My last comment refers to Hardy, of course.)

mikelima wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 11:38
Dejavu are much nicer, in my opinion. And they more scripts. So, I'm not against liberation inclusion, but DejaVu are the best bet as the default font set.

Pekkalainen wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 14:44
These fonts are horrible on my 24" Dell monitor. Until this is changed my vote is negative.

maynoth wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 15:44
try mint linux livecd, looks awesome on my 22"

mohbana wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 14:51
I just install mscorefonts, everything is fine after that.

maynoth wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 15:00
yes I think the redhat fonts look even better than mscorefonts. I always installed them after I got Ubuntu running. Mint looks better out of box than ubuntu does after you install everything.

verwilst wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 15:05
Hm i must say in Hardy, i like the default Sans and Monospace fonts better than the Liberation fonts..

Jan-Nik wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 21:25
I created a page that compares dejavu and liberation:

http://watteimdocht.de/jan-nik/liberation/

rumli wrote on the 18 Mar 08 at 23:16
I agree with mikelima. DejaVu are much more readable. Although, for Serif, I prefer Norasi to all others.

Jan-Nik wrote on the 29 Mar 08 at 17:51
Foresight Linux 2 does also use Liberation Sans as the default font for the GUI.

futwick wrote on the 25 May 08 at 22:45
These look much cleaner than msttcorefonts, wish I'd heard about them sooner.

ofir_k wrote on the 25 May 08 at 23:44
Those fonts include non-English languages?

Jan-Nik wrote on the 1 Jun 08 at 12:02
@ofir_k
yeah, of course.
Even if a character is missing, text output will fall back to another font for that character.

Kray wrote on the 14 Nov 08 at 22:45
Jan-Nik:

1. DejaVu contains *much* more wider set of characters - this is important for non-English languages.

2. I curious about a font settings you use while grabbing a screenshot present at http://watteimdocht.de/jan-nik/liberation/ - DejaVu looks much more pleasant on my Ubuntu. It is important to note that different fonts needs different settings (mostly hinting) to achieve the best look.

calande wrote on the 16 Nov 08 at 15:04
We've been asking for viable MS font alternatives for years, and finally we have them. It would be incredible not to include them now that we have them.

I suggest offering Ubuntu with Liberation as default font set, and keeping legacy fonts such as the DejaVu font family for certain asian languages. This way, latin users are happy with sharp and modern Liberation font set, while asian users can still display all characters of their languages with DejaVu.

Jan-Nik wrote on the 29 Nov 08 at 11:49
@Krey

1. As I said: When a character is missing, it will fallback to dejavu, so I don't really see the problem here.

2. It has been a long time ago I created these screenshots. Settings aren't optimal, but the only thing I wanted to show is how DejeVu destroys designs due to its unusual character width and that Liberation's hinting is better.

topias.virta wrote on the 11 Jan 09 at 15:27
DejaVu is better desktop font and Liberation is better web font. That's so simple. So why don't we just use DejaVu as desktop font and Liberation fonts as web fonts like Debian Lenny?

rin67630 wrote on the 15 Jun 09 at 09:07
It will probably make the debate somewhat less emotional, if we attempt to define what "better" means:

a) Metrics: Liberation is font designed to have the same metrics than the extremely wide used Microsoft fonts.
That will ensure that the 90%+ of the documents (generated with Microsoft software) will not have text formatting issues. That will also ensure that a lot of websites were not display broken.

b) Hinting: is adjusting the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At small sizes, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text for readers.
One might object, that anti-aliasing eliminates the need for hinting.
IMHO that is comparable with echo and chorus effects eliminating the need to be able to sing.
With or without antialiasing, a good hinted font is always crisper and easier to read.

c) International support: the world is not consisting only of english characters, a font should be able to support many languages. Liberation isn't here really brilliant.
Fortunately most of the modern Linux software provides ad-hoc substitutions, so that this will not be an issue to display documents and web sites. It will however be a blocking point for internationalised versions of Ubuntu in nonsupported languages. These regional versions should provide a replacement in the corresponding packages.
(and of course, a possible alternative can be to use the restricted microsoft core fonts)

d) Licensing issues: as far as I have been informed, Debian and Red Hat have resolved the issue a couple of months ago. The legal usage of Liberation as a default should be now unproblematic .

All in one: Having Liberation fonts as a default, would increase the quality of desktop displays and the formatting fidelity of documents and web sites altogether.
At least for European languages this is in my opinion a must.

regards.
RIN67630


znupi wrote on the 16 Mar 10 at 10:24
Yes yes and triple yes. Not only are they nice, but they are metric compatible with Arial etc., which means no more quirks with a lot of websites (I've even had problems with Facebook).

cheesehead (Brainstorm admin) wrote on the 25 Sep 11 at 01:57
Canonical decided to develop it's own Ubuntu font.


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