Windows core fonts...

I my humble opinion, Cannonical ist making a capital mistake: Ubuntu comes with "Linux fonts" only.

Since almost all potential users come from Windows, they have legacy documents written using Windows fonts. Almost all the Web is designed to display using Windows fonts.

When these fonts are missing in Ubuntu (they are available for free!) the imported documents look differently and sometimes look broken. Quite a lot of websites as well!

Why refraining to include them by default, just because of their origin?

Once you have loaded these core fonts:

• Ubuntu Firefox becomes to display Webpages like Windows Firefox do: correctly!
• OpenOffice becomes to display Office documents like Windows OpenOffice do: correctly!
• and so on...

Most of the potential users will leave Ubuntu due to the unfinished aspect of the imported documents and the staggered website display far before having got a chance to discover the possiblity to download the Windows Core fonts.

The Windows core fonts really makes Ubuntu useable. Apple has understood that and offers these fonts out of the box.

if it must absolutely be open source, then at least the Liberation Fonts should be included, they are not absolutely perfect (specially in bold and italic), but the have got the metrics to display the documents and the Websites correctly.

Last but for me not least, for those who dislike blurry fonts: the Arial font displays crisp and clean without antialiasing at all sizes, none of the Ubuntu fonts does the job as well.

RIN67630

P.S. for those of you wanting to see the desktop with these fonts take a look a the attachment.

I would like to ask you a side question: does Arial in Ubuntu (from the msttcorefonts package) look exactle like the Arial in windows? Because I have problems with Arial since Ubuntu 8.04 which looks to wide/broad for its height at size 9. Size 8 and 10 look quite alright, but most websites use Arial with an apparent size of 9, which makes those websites very ugly. Can you confirm this?

Well there is a good reason why Ubuntu doesnt come with MS core fonts, because its not legal to distribute thse fonts in some nations. Apple has the money to redistribute these fonts but they can only do it with micorsofts permission and they probably pay some insane fee for it. I personally never had any issues with the fonts in ubuntu, but I understand why Ubuntu uses the fonts it does, because MScorefonts are not free fonts and there is some BS law against distributing them for free,

SunnyRabbiera said: Well there is a good reason why Ubuntu doesnt come with MS core fonts, because its not legal to distribute thse fonts in some nations.

Apple has the money to redistribute these fonts but they can only do it with micorsofts permission and they probably pay some insane fee for it. I personally never had any issues with the fonts in ubuntu, but I understand why Ubuntu uses the fonts it does, because MScorefonts are not free fonts and there is some BS law against distributing them for free,

I always thought you had to buy the Mac version of Microsoft Office to get the fonts. Otherwise you wouldn't have them.

smartboyathome said: I always thought you had to buy the Mac version of Microsoft Office to get the fonts. Otherwise you wouldn't have them.

Well maybe more recent versions of OSX might have them, apple has the money to feed MS's greed.

*snip*, doublepost apparently

Hi

I am a relatively new ubuntu user and I love it, but I have to say that I did find it annoying at first that all the web pages had a different feel because of the font not being what I have been used to for so many years of using windows. I can see many people being turned away from ubuntu and other linux distributions because of this issue alone.

rin67630 would you be so kind as to give some details on where and how one would go about getting the windows core fonts? And maybe how to install them as well...

Thanks That would be super!

bereta said: Hi

rin67630 would you be so kind as to give some details on where and how one would go about getting the windows core fonts? And maybe how to install them as well...

Thanks That would be super! search synaptic for msttcorefonts and mark for installation.

Thanks, I figured it out. Here is a link that might be useful:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-install-microsoft-core-fonts-in-ubuntu-linux/

This is cool! Now there's no reason to change back to windows.

bereta said: Thanks, I figured it out. Here is a link that might be useful:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-install-microsoft-core-fonts-in-ubuntu-linux/

This is cool! Now there's no reason to change back to windows. Can you make a screenshot of this website in your favorite browser in Ubuntu? My problem is that, even though I have msttcorefonts package installed, the fonts turn out to look far from how they look in windows. That is in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid. My girlfriend uses Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy, which astonishingly renders the fonts quite right, but without font smoothing, only after she installed some windows fonts that belonged to a mac make over package from somewhere on the internet. I would like to know if your fonts are alright too.

edit_1:

I just played for a while with the settings, and it seems that I had to make some concessions: I had hinting set to slight, but I must set it at full for Arial to look like it should. That said, I also updated my .fonts.conf file to something far less cluttered with only the needed options in it. So far Arial looks again like it did on my previous installs of Ubuntu, namely 7.04 and 7.10. I'm happy!

SunnyRabbiera said: Well there is a good reason why Ubuntu doesnt come with MS core fonts, because its not legal to distribute thse fonts in some nations.

Apple has the money to redistribute these fonts but they can only do it with micorsofts permission and they probably pay some insane fee for it. I personally never had any issues with the fonts in ubuntu, but I understand why Ubuntu uses the fonts it does, because MScorefonts are not free fonts and there is some BS law against distributing them for free,

Take a look at MS core fonts on Wikipedia.

One may need to run the .exe, which isn't a cup of ubuntu coffee, but a good glass of wine would do.