My Smooth fonts setup for Kubuntu Karmic

The first thing which put me off after logging in to the kubuntu (9.10) desktop for the first time was the fonts.  They are two problems I have with the default Kubuntu fonts (Well the first one is not much of a problem but personal taste.)

1: The default fonts The default font setup on Kubuntu Karmic is ok. But I wanted some better than ok,   so I install the liberation fonts which has always served me well in the past (especially when I was a gnomie :) ) It comes as part of the  Kubuntu-restricted-extra package.

You can install as a standalone package by clicking Install

It  can always install the package from terminal

sudo apt-get install ttf-liberation


Once installed you can change the system fonts by going to System-Settings/Appearance/Fonts and click Adjust all fonts then select Liberation Sans from the list. (I got the best appearance by using size eight) fonts

2: The fonts for gtk application are just way too fugly that it hurts the eyes. Plus they look very out of place from the rest of the KDE UI.  Thankfully I was able to fix this issue by replacing the .fonts.conf in my home directory with  this  one  file rename the .raw.txt file to .fonts.conf and place it you your home directory (remember that a file with a . (dot) in front is hidden in Linux. You can always view all hidden file in KDE with Alt and .(dot) keyboard combination) Once you have done this you can log out and login back for the changes to take effect.  After applying this fix around you would notice a clear difference in the way gtk app fonts are displayed. The Fix makes fonts for gkt application to be very smooth and consistent with the rest of the KDE UI

Before the fix

After the Fix

I will let you be the judge of that.

Hope someone finds this useful.

NB

I have edited the post and used codepad instead of mediafire as the download source, since it more appropriate for this type of thing. Big thanks to Mark who made this suggestion to me

This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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  • Martin Hooper

    Unless they have changed it liberation fonts are not part of the restricted extras.

    Installing should be fine the way you have said though.

  • http://twitter.com/itohnobue itoh nobue

    thanks for the tip! GTK applications in KDE environment always was a pain :)
    with this fonts they are really good-looking ^_^

  • hogend

    The download link is not working. Why not include the text verbatim, so people can just copy&paste?
    Thanks

    • http://bigbrovar.aoizora.org/ bigbrovar

      the content of the .fonts.conf file is written in xml formatted which gets formatted in wp. can someone else confirm the link is not working?

  • Mark

    I recommend using http://codepad.org/ for the fonts.conf file and not the crappy mediafire services with there popup spam.

    The link is indeed working, but plain text should not be put on something like that. again, use codepad!

    • http://bigbrovar.aoizora.org/ bigbrovar

      Thanks I have made the edit. to the post using codepad instead of mediafire. We learn everyday :)

  • Shiba

    Hi. Have you tried ttf-droid? They look just awesome!

  • Pingback: My Perfect Kubuntu 10.04 Desktop « bigbrovar

  • Akshar Patel

    Thank you so much for such an excellent tutorial. It has been a great help.

  • http://openid-provider.appspot.com/gregor.rosenauer grexe

    thanks for the tip, already had Liberation installed but not tried it out yet, looks sleek.
    fonts.conf was already exactly as your version, without manual adjustment – praise Sidux:) / Debian Sid…

  • http://undiff.com Berry van der Linden

    What do you think about 10.10′s Ubuntu font which is now the default?
    Thanks

    • http://bigbrovar.aoizora.org/ bigbrovar

      compared to the former default the Ubuntu fonts are quite good. But I find it not as good as Liberation or droid san (at least imho). and the difference between then is quite obvious.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_SOBVIV5BHPBFIZZAR35A67KRM4 FarNiente F

    Dude, this is fantastic.  Thanks!