The Register: Fabulous Fonts in Linux

One of the more common disappointments reported about the Linux GUI is clunky fonts under X. While it's true that they can look pretty rough out of the box, it's also true that sharpening them up is easy and well worth the effort, thanks to MS TrueType fonts and the open-source FreeType project which makes them useable on Linux. What follows is an explanation of how to tweak them, assuming KDE is your desktop manager. (I imagine this may work on other desktops, but KDE is the only one I'm well acquainted with.)

The first step is to download and install the MS TrueType core fonts. These used to be available from MS but are no longer, though they can be had now courtesy of SourceForge here, along with detailed instructions for downloading and installing them. You'll have to download a source RPM and then build a binary RPM. If you're a newbie and this sounds intimidating, there's a simpler alternative if you have an existing Windows image on your Linux machine: simply copy the desired fonts from the Windows partition to a directory on your Linux partition. My guess is that if you've paid MS for the privilege of using their fonts, you can use them with another OS so long as you don't distribute them without permission.

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• ExtremeTech: Microsoft Withdraws Free Web Fonts(Aug 20, 2002)
• Linux Journal: Is Beauty Only Pixel Deep?, Part 1(Jun 01, 2002)
• LinuxDevices: MS Office Arrives on the Linux Desktop(Mar 27, 2002)
• CodeWeavers Announces CrossOver Plugin 1.1 with Windows Media Support(Feb 27, 2002)
• Gnotices: Gdkxft 1.1 released: Anti-Aliased fonts for GTK+ 1.2(Sep 07, 2001)