Tag Archives: fonts

My Ubuntu Look and Feel

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Yesterday I blogged about changing the GDM login screen, which seems to be a very touchy and popular subject among readers. I don’t know that I’ve heard from but a very few people that actually like the default login screen in Ubuntu 9.04. It seems everyone has an opinion about changing it. I thought I would offer mine, in more detail. Presenting “My Ubuntu Look and Feel”

Desktop Background

There are so many really amazing desktop backgrounds to choose from it is hard to pick just one and publish it as my “favorite”. I guess what I will say is that I’ve grown accustomed to something darker (which fits with the theme, which we’ll see soon.) One of my recent selections is GNOME Smoke. Not too busy, and not too bright and shiny as to be distracting.

Theme

For my overall theme I have been using Shiki-Colors for months now. I’ve really grown accustomed to the look, and my desktop just “looks funny” to me if its on something else. I’ve blogged in the past about how to install Shiki-Colors. If you haven’t tried it, I’d recommend it.

Fonts

Another must-have in my book is the Droid Sans font. I update all my fonts system wide to use this (Droid Sans Mono within gnome-terminal). You might also check out my previous post about installing Droid Fonts. If you haven’t tried this font set check it out. Here are some quick instructions:

sudo aptitude install ttf-droid

System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts

Select “Droid Sans” 10pt for everything. I also check “LCD” (I am on a laptop). You also may notice a difference if you click “Details” in the bottom right corner of the window and make sure that you’re resolution is set to “96″ dots per inch. I know that recent releases try to dynamically detect the best resolution, often times selecting something higher than 96. I’ve found that 96 still looks the best.

gnome-terminal

It might seem odd to include gnome-terminal is a list of graphical tweaks, but I always customize my terminal as well. Considering I spend the more part of my day within it, it should present me with the most comfortable surroundings.

First I right-click and select Profile > Profile Preferences. I then deselect “Show menubar by default in new terminals”. I then deselect “Use thy system fixed width font” and select Droid Sans Mono, 10pt. I then move to the “Colors” tab and deselect “Use colors from system theme”. I promptly change the color scheme to White on Black. For me, a black background is the only appropriate background for a console. After this I move to the “Scrolling” tab and select “Disable”. You might think this disables the ability to scroll. It does not. It disables the scrollbar within the window (pgup/pgdn still work as expected).

With that I Close the window and enjoy a white on black console with the additional space alloted from removing the scrollbar and menubar, plus a very clean readable font.

Conclusion

Looking back at this it sure doesn’t seem like I’m too particular when it comes to the look and feel of my Desktop, but I definitely have an opinion. I’ve grown to the point that I like/expect certain things a certain way, while not caring about others. It does sometimes feel like I’ve grown a bit more minimalist. Anything that allows me to focus more on my work and less on the “bling” and I’m good.

What are some of your favorite UI tweaks? Have a favorite wallpaper? GDM theme? font? Share the love!

How To Install Droid Fonts on Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty”

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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?

Convert mac-based fonts for use on Ubuntu : Ubuntu (6.06.1 / 6.10)

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Previously I did a post on How to Install Microsoft Core Fonts on Ubuntu packages for compatibility with the fonts everyone else seems to be using. Of course, as an Open Source Advocate, I prefer to use the non-proprietary fonts but there do arise situations where many of us need compatibility so we’ve got to bend occasionally. This post is an addition to the previous, only this time I’ll outline how to convert and install fonts from your mac-based machine for use on Ubuntu.

First of all you need a quick program to convert the fonts because Mac embeds extra junk information in the fonts themselves. This’ll allow Ubuntu to read the font information and let you use them on your machine.

sudo aptitude install fondu

After this is installed simply copy your mac-based fonts into a folder and convert them using:

fondu * (or fondu <filename>)

Put these newly converted fonts into your fonts directory (~/.fonts) or, while inside the Nautilus file manager type CTRL-L to “Open Location” and type “fonts:///” You can also drag-drop your fonts into either location.

Between these last two posts you should have just about every font you’d ever need!

How to install Microsoft Core Fonts : Ubuntu (5.10 / 6.06.1 / 6.10)

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With Microsoft as dominant as it is (see Bug #1) we often need to look for compatibility options for a number of things. There are teams working on all types of compatibility issues but one of them is already taken care of (and I’m sure there are many more to come). This tutorial will allow you to install Microsoft’s Core Font package on your Ubuntu system, allowing you to see and use the same fonts that all of our Windows friends are used to.

Simply run the following command which will retrieve and install the Microsoft Core Fonts. (Note: license restrictions, of course, do not allow these to be freely distributed but Microsoft does make them available for download. This script simply downloads the publicly available files.)

sudo aptitude install msttcorefonts

After this is done cranking through the downloads you should now have access to these fonts the next time you launch your next Word Processing application. Enjoy your proprietary compatibility.