# Linux screen fonts...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-screen-fonts/174519>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [May 11, 2003, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-screen-fonts/174519 "2003-05-11T17:51:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-screen-fonts/174519/1 "2003-05-11T17:51:21Z")

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So I just upgraded to SuSE 8.2 with Mozilla 1.2, and installed my MS web fonts via YAST. Though it pains me, I have to grudgingly give MS some credit for Verdana. That’s a damn fine screen font.

Anyway, I fire up Mozilla, set Verdana as my default Sans-serif, and proceed to surf.

Ewwww.

Mozilla 1.2’s antialiasing on true type fonts _totally_ sucks. So bad that I’ve uninstalled all the core fonts from my system and stuck with the default Butt Ugly Helvetica. Which is bad enough in it’s own right, especially at small sizes, but nowhere near as nasty as Mozilla’s new renderings.

So can any of you Linux folk recommend a nice sans-serif screenfont that doesn’t require antialiasing in Mozilla? I imagine ttf is probably a bad idea, but I’m willing to give anything free or cheap a shot.

Danke.

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**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-screen-fonts/174519/2 "2003-05-11T21:11:18Z")

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My SO says:

> [@](#):
>
> I heard Nimbus was ok…there’s “freefont” as well which isn’t bad. Those are the two that I think should look alright in Linux.
> 
> Maybe try upgrading Mozilla to 1.3, but then I don’t know SuSE so I don’t know. Alternatively, switch to Debian. Fonts look amazing in Debian!

I use Mozilla in Linux (Debain) and I like Helvetica. I can’t really see a difference between it and Arial in Windows.

Good luck!

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**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-screen-fonts/174519/3 "2003-05-12T21:47:12Z")

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Thanks **mnem** (and hubby too.)

Maybe it’s just me. I actually _like_ the way IE renders. Oh well.

I’ve ended up using Konqueror instead. It does the antialiasing right; I still prefer plain vanilla bitmap fonts for on-screen use on my laptop, but at least I can read it without my eyes bleeding.

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**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2003, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/linux-screen-fonts/174519/4 "2003-05-12T23:27:53Z")

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- 
  - 
    - This may not matter, you may have done it already, but there was a story on Slashdot about how some aspect of Linux was disabled to display truetype fonts at the maximum ideal resolution. Or something. Anyway, they weren’t allowed to distribute the _executable_, but they were allowed to distribute the source code, which they did. So to use it, there was something you had to do and then recompile and install or whatever, that made it look a lot better… or something. Got that? Good.  
~