Linux Fonts

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Sans serif fonts on Linux, or I can't tell I from l when they look alike but not exactly like 1. Also the search for a good Slashed zero font on linux is important to a lot of users.

Learn how to use Mint Linux Installing Fonts System-Wide which also applies to Ubuntu and some information to all Linux distributions.

The Ubuntu Font Family emerged around 2010 and the technical font design work and implementation was undertaken by Dalton Maag and released for Ubuntu 10.10. He used software tools such as Fontlab Studio as well as, and sadly, Microsoft Visual Truetype (VTT).

Early Linux users were troubled by learning that there were few fonts available and many were proprietary or public domain. Obviously, proprietary fonts would be legally incompatible with free software. A GPL Font Exception clause was created as part of the evolution of fonts being introduced into and made available for Linux distributions. The Font Exception satisfied the Free Software Foundation’s concerns, and was used by Red Hat in 2007 when it first released its Liberation Fonts.

The Bitstream Vera License granted users “the rights to use, copy, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Font Software” so long as the copyright accompanied any use of the fonts. In addition, no derivative fonts could use the words “Bitstream” or “Vera” in their names and could not be sold alone.

Then later the SIL Font License enabled the rise of the free font movement, making Linux a practical choice for designers and artists. Today, it is the most popular free license for fonts. SIL International is a Christian academic organization and they developed new fonts to promote literacy in under developed countries. Revised in 2007, the SIL Font License went on to become the most popular license for free fonts. Although the requirement that a font using the license cannot be sold alone is technically a violation of the GPL, the requirement is so easy to fulfill that the SIL Font License is generally accepted as a free license.