#1 2018-04-03 03:39:54

johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,666

Website

Change default font?

The current BL default font is the Noto family, which seemed to be the natural inheritor of Droid, chosen by general acclaim some time ago.

Now a suggestion has been made to change it to Liberation, the main argument being that many web pages put it high in their list of preferences, so we need to install it anyway. (I insist that Firefox ignores the web page's choice of font, so don't get that problem myself.)

We still need to have a font with wide coverage of many languages so Noto and Noto-cjk would still be on the system, so the question comes down to what font looks best for default choice.

CJK users would probably want to set a font like noto-cjk to avoid sudden shifts of style when displaying kanji etc, but general users?

Any opinions?

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Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

Website

Re: Change default font?

a suggestion has been made to change it to Liberation, the main argument being that many web pages put it high in their list of preferences, so we need to install it anyway.

Actually my argument was that the last release of CrunchBang had Liberation Sans set as the default sans-serif font so that should be continued in BunsenLabs, just as we have continued using the same file manager and terminal emulator.

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johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,666

Website

Re: Change default font?

^The Hydrogen and Deuterium releases already broke with that tradition, though, using fonts-droid which at the time seemed quite a popular choice.

I don't have very strong views on this, but would like to get some more input from the people who do.

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vinzv

Member

Registered: 2017-09-12

Posts: 186

Website

Re: Change default font?

I'm quite happy with the look of Helium-alpha right now. So, if there's no need to a) switch back to some legacy and b) to another font I'd happily stick with Noto.
Especially with it's wide range of non-lation glyphs Noto is a good way, I guess.

brontosaurusrex

Middle Office

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 2,755

Re: Change default font?

Noto seems slighly more modern and some caps seems slightly thiner, so i'd stick with that. Also Noto seems to come with any thickness imaginable (Not sure about Liberation).

http://www.identifont.com/differences?f … ation+Sans

Last edited by brontosaurusrex (2018-04-04 08:01:55)

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Gaucho

From: High in the Custerdome

Registered: 2015-09-17

Posts: 16,169

Website

Re: Change default font?

Another vote for Noto. It's similar enough to Open Sans, used in our logo, that the default desktop looks very unified. Liberation Sans has fancier tails (bottom right of 'a', for instance) and things that break cohesiveness.

Liberation Sans is an open-source drop-in for Microsoft's Arial. Personally, I'm sick of Arial. Windows 3.1 called, it wants its font back. 

I'm all for including fonts-liberation2 in the full-size images, though.

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Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 9,093

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Re: Change default font?

I'm sick of Arial

Heresy!  8o

Puffy:~$ fc-match sans
arial.ttf: "Arial" "Regular"
Puffy:~$

Good thing you didn't see this thread then:

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=4569

]:D

Anyway, it's simple enough to edit fonts.conf

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tknomanzr

BL Die Hard

From: Around the Bend

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 1,057

Re: Change default font?

I like Noto Sans for its similarity to Open Sans, which was one of my favorite Sans-Serif fonts back when I was working in the print industry. We should definitely keep the package in our install list, however, because to my way of thinking, we should respect our legacy enough to make it possible for people to re-create that legacy on a more modern platform, i.e. Stretch vs Waldorf. Noto Sans does help Bunsenlabs to establish its own identity, however. While Helium is a clear break from our tradition, it is an important step in our journey. I applaud our efforts to ensure that our legacy is available for those who would prefer a Crunchbang or Hydrogen look, however.

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Gaucho

From: High in the Custerdome

Registered: 2015-09-17

Posts: 16,169

Website

Re: Change default font?

^ Good bathroom reading.

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ohnonot

...again

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 5,592

Re: Change default font?

whatever the choice of font will be (noto is good, but there might be a few slightly better, but then the licensing may not be suitable) - the most important thing is a well set up fontconfig, substituting common font names with nice fonts preferably already installed.

just this morning i decided to go through that manually, removing uneeded/duplicate fonts, and adjusting the config files, because i decided that microsoft's fonts do not spy on me, and the new ones are really nice...

anyhow, this is the article i originally followed and besides installing the appropriate fonts it comes down mostly to this config; just as an example. the difference on my system was immediate; not so much because fonts render better but because the right fonts are chosen now!