UPDATE: This post has been updated to include instructions for Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic”, 9.04 “Jaunty” and 8.10 “Intrepid”
Based on this recent post regarding Getting Android’s Fonts on Ubuntu by Stefano Forenza I have installed these new fonts on my machine(s) and I’m enjoying them very much. I thought I’d pass on the instructions for how to install ttf-droid, the Android fonts, on your Ubuntu machine.
As you may have read in his post (linked above), the fonts are only available in the official repositories for Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty” and beyond. If you are using a previous version you’ll have to install them manually. Here is how we’ll do it:
Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic”
sudo aptitude install ttf-droid
Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty”
sudo aptitude install ttf-droid
Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid”
Download ttf-droid package
- Double-click downloaded file to install
OR
- dpkg -i ~/Desktop/ttf-droid*.deb
I think these fonts look really clean and crisp. The ttf-droid fonts have now replaced the Red Hat Liberation fonts I was previously using on both of my work machines.
I’m curious what other fonts people generally use. I’ve run into people that are absolutely passionate about using the right font, while at the same time others don’t really care and have never changed them from their defaults. Which type are you?