Ubuntu fonts

B

brentsg

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2003
Messages
1,746
So I spend 99% of my time looking at fairly stock installations of OSX and Vista64. I now have a need to put Ubuntu (or some other distro) on my wife's new HP 2140 netbook.

The most important thing to her is that it look "right" to pass wife acceptance factor. This means that I have to get the fonts to look like what she's used to. I threw Ubuntu on my vista box last night and I have that clunky looking font thing going. It's not smoothing, but rather just using different fonts than we're used to. Yeah I know, fonts are fonts... but if she doesn't like the look then I'm going to end up with Vista on a netbook and that sounds ugly.

Can anyone point me to a FAQ or something? I've taken a few runs at cleaning it up via some Google searches but it's still not there... especially in Firefox. It doesn't help that I've not messed with fonts before. I have always just used defaults when it comes to OS/browsers.

Thanks for any nudges in a positive direction.
 
Thanks... Will that help with Firefox or do I need to tweak that after?
 
First off, thanks a ton.

Second... the file referenced in step 3 on that page does not exist.

Was the "update" posted later a replacement for step 3 or an additional action?
 
Bah nevermind I didn't read far enough... trying to multitask too much.
 
FWIW Vista on a netbook isn't bad at all. You could also use the 7 Beta, pretty much Vista with some new features, and its free until next year.
 
I've been playing with ubuntu for a couple of months and I still think Vista/Windows 7 are prettier, but there isn't such a gulf that you can't get used to the difference. It's worth having a tinker with System -> Preferences -> Appearances. Try the various themes, it's easy to mix & match the fonts and icons from different themes using customise. I quite like 'Clearlooks' and 'Human-Clearlooks' with the 'Tangerine' icon set. Fonts tab will let you change them to whatever you want :) Also I found making the task bars transparent immediately gave the desktop a pleasant improvement (right click them for properties) it's easy increase/decrease the size also! and of course download some decent wallpaper!

If you can't get it 'right' try KDE and XFCE desktops instead. You can install them all from System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager and interchange between them from the login screen.

More desktop themes here:
http://www.gnome-look.org/
& some nice wallpapers here:
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/downloads/date/any/
 
Last edited:
I appreciate the helpful suggestions.

For now she's using XP home on an HP 2140 but there are some annoyances. She's coming from an old 12" PowerBook that was an awesome kitchen counter machine late in its 5 year reign.

I figured I'd tinker a bit on my Vista box because I have a couple hundred DVDs to encode so I'm going to compile the latest (Linux CLI) Handbrake and rip thru them.

I'll play with it some more and make sure I can get it wife proof. Right now she's not thrilled with the 2140 (hd screen even!) because she wanted a macbook. I couldn't justify the $800 price difference for something that might get coffee spilled in it. Plus this netbook is a very nice little device.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top