Hacker News Reader

Comment by rufugee | Hacker News Reader

How long has it been since you looked at Ubuntu's fonts? I use both OS X and Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is at least equal to OS X these days IMO.

View on HN

Run, don't walk, to your nearest optometrist and get your eyes checked.

Ubuntu and OS X are not even remotely comparable from a typography standpoint. Using Freetype (the Linux/X11 lib for font rendering), tracking and stem thickness is inconsistent, ascenders and descenders get cut off, etc.

The Freetype team puts forth a valiant effort, but until they're allowed to use Adobe/Apple/etc.'s patented hinting algorithms, there's no comparison.

Interestingly enough, they probably are allowed to use those in my country ;-)

I dunno...

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu139/jsz0/fonttest.png

Just tell Ubuntu/Gnome to use the DejaVu fonts by default. They are much nicer looking than the "standard" fonts. Also, `aptitude install ttf-mscorefonts-installer` goes a long way towards making the web look nicer, as does changing Firefox's default font selections.

And yes, I wish Ubuntu would at least make DejaVu the defaults for everything out of the box.

I'm using Ubuntu and my screen looks like the OSX screen in the picture. The default ubuntu install comes with only free fonts, and clearly HN has been designed to look best with non free. All that is required to make both look the same is to type:

sudo aptitude install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

I don't install the microsoft fonts and still HN looks like much more like the Mac OS X example for me on Ubuntu 9.10 with Chromium and Firefox.

Being fair to the parent, you don't seem to have the MS web fonts installed on Ubuntu, so the two OSes are rendering different fonts.

Still.. even if you do install the right fonts, the results will be the same.

They look like different fonts and different weights (heavier fonts, emboldened, are more readable at smaller sizes). Both look ugly OSX ones are too ragged, Ubuntu are too sharp. Is it the exact same font being rendered by the different engines??

I'm using Ubuntu and my fonts look nothing like that. And no, I don't use the Microsoft fonts. Something's messed up on that machine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com