1y ago

What fonts are the most common on Linux today?

For a long time, I’ve just put on DejaVu fonts and been done with it. Generally good enough Unicode coverage for me. But I know it’s been years since DejaVu’s been updated, and I wonder what’s very common today.

[As for the terminal, I’m guessing it’s usually still the standard fixed Unicode fonts?]

66 comments

Dejavu, Liberation, & Noto are all pretty common.
- Liberation
  IS THE BEST for LibreOffice... AAAA

I'm a sucker for jetbrains Mono when I need a monospaced font. It just looks nice to me.
- The ligatures are chef's kiss

I usually install noto-fonts
- My EndeavourOS (and the prior Manjaro distro) had all of them installed.
  All. Of. Them.
  I am so tired of having to scroll through hundreds of Noto fonts to get to the later ones, but I'm afraid, if I uninstall one, something will break on reboot.

I LOVE FIRA CODE (NERD PATCHED)!!!!

Ubuntu uses their own font family. I think it’s one of the only distributions with its own custom font, but I might be wrong. The Unicode coverage of the Ubuntu font is not very big compared to Google’s Noto font family, which many distributions switched to as default. But it mostly depends on the DE — Gnome uses the Cantarell font, KDE uses the aforementioned Noto font.
- The Unicode coverage of the Ubuntu font is not very big compared to Google’s Noto
  Well it's pretty much the entire point of Noto after all, so it's probably hard to beat, from the website:
  The name is also short for "no tofu", as the project aims to eliminate 'tofu': blank rectangles shown when no font is available for your text.

I like fira code w/ nerd fonts. The ligatures are nice for coding.
- The f and t crossers being at different levels breaks my concentration when I'm reading code. I prefer comic mono and fantasque for this reason, but fira code is exceptionally well thought out
  
  I see that as a positive feature - I like every character to be clearly distinct and it helps me to resume reading when my concentration is broken.

Can't speak to how common they are, but I do like the Nerd Fonts, and particularly MesloLGS NF 10pt for my monospaced font. Very handy for Zsh Powerline10k and neovim.

Inter for GUI, Iosevka for terminal. Dejavu is my fallback option for some systems.

I use open dyslexia as I have dyslexia. Its very nice!
- Ok, I think I need to google that one, not that I have dislexia, just out of curiosity.
  
  It's a font designed to ease letter recognition.
  It can be useful for people who don't have dislexia too, for example for subtitles.
- How do you like Atkinson Hyperlegible?? I've heard good things about it from visually impaired people, but I'm not clear on how much it helps with dyslexia.

I enjoy Fira Sans and Fira Mono. Looks professional without being extraordinarily boring.

Hack Nerd Font Mono and Noto Sans for me.

Usually I just use whatever fonts are default on the DE I happen to be using at the time, right now that'd be GNOME so I believe its Cantarell? I don't generally customize my normal (non-monospace) fonts because I can never find one that looks good everywhere. I like Google's "Product Sans" font for example, but it is definitely not one you want to use everywhere. Yet oddly enough on my Pixel, I believe Product Sans is the default unless an app explicitly changes it, and it looks good everywhere there. Or maybe I've just never given changing the default enough time to adjust to it, who knows.
The monospace font that I use is Comic Code, it sounds silly I know (I was skeptical at first too) - but it looks really nice in both my terminal and IntelliJ. Something about the font renderer that is used by default (I can't think of the name for some reason, FreeType maybe?) makes it look really nice and sharp. On Windows, it looks too thin, and on macOS it looks too thick - Linux is truly the "golidlocks" for this font it seems.
But, the Intel One Mono font looks nice too.
- If you like Comic Code you may also enjoy Fantasque Sans Mono. It has a lot of character and feels comfortable to read.
  
  Oh that font looks awesome! I'll definitely be downloading this and giving it a try, thank you!
  Edit: I need to remember how to use FontPatcher to manually patch the "non-curly K" variant, its been forever since I did this process 😅

I have settled on mplus code, I really like its condensed look.
https://www.programmingfonts.org/#mplus

I don't think it's that common, but if you're looking for good fonts, I really like IBM Plex Sans/Serif/Mono. Has good Unicode coverage as well and is "open source" (or whatever it's called for fonts).
- I use these too, and Fira Code and Hack for coding.

I use noto fonts for web browsing and general GUI stuff and I use Cascadia Code in the terminal

I'm a fan of the Go fonts for terminals.
- Heck yes! I like to read in my terminal, and the go fonts are one of the best monospaced serif fonts I’ve found for the purpose

Ubuntu fonts works pretty good for me as a general UI font tbh. In text editors I prefer mononoki over monospace, it's a bit prettier IMO, although in terminal I use terminus because pixel fonts are cool.

Iosevka

I've been using JetBrains Mono Nerd Font for my terminal as of late and Inter for my GUI's.
- JetBrains Mono NF masterrace represents!
  Honestly if I have to choose only one mono font family to use for the rest of my natural life, JetBrains Mono without a shred of a doubt.

it's Jetbrains where it's at..

I generally install MS Office Fonts, some Adobe Fonts and then Fira Code Nerd Font too.

I like Iosevka for programming and terminal.

I have a weird selection- Jetbrains Mono with Monocraft and the bold Minecraft font. Jetbrains Mono is for everything except discord. Monocraft with Minecraft Bold is for Discord which i have IRCified with a custom Vencord theme.

Not common, perhaps, but I like to download Atkinson Hyperlegible.
- My #1 choice, although I don't like the q, i or a. Still feels more airy than IBM Plex (my #2 choice).

I use the entire Apple's SF suite (including New York)
- Do you use the ttf/off version? I just tried to install them in KDE (off some sketchy git repo) but they look really wonky as a UI don’t.
  
  Scratch that, you can theoretically download the fonts from Apple, it comes with OTF/TTF embedded within their .dmg. Not advocating for any breach of licensing terms.

My preference for a few years have been a combination if IBM Plex Sans for most stuff and Iosevka for monospace. They both look amazing! Iosevka might look a bit weird when first seeing it but I can't really use anything else these days. However, Fira Code is a really good monospace font as well.
- +1 Iosevka is awsome!

Lots of great fonts and families mentioned so far in this thread, but no-one has mentioned my current and long-time favourite for almost all environments and applications: Input.

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$ echo sans serif monospace | xargs -n 1 fc-match
InputSansCondensed-Regular.ttf: "Input Sans Condensed" "Regular"
InputSerifCondensed-Regular.ttf: "Input Serif Condensed" "Regular"
InputMono-Regular.ttf: "Input Mono" "Regular"

Ubuntu / Ubuntu Mono are my favorites.
I use Fedora, but I still install Ubuntu font because I prefer it lol

Lexend fonts, they increase reading speed, offer more precise size control, and have the extra perk of being more accessible for differently abled readers. I like to familiarize myself with "accessible" design, the more we get used to it as normal the better our world can get.

I use fantasque for my monospace, fira sans for my work horse ui font, and Garamond for my "someone wants to display serifs for some reason"

I use whatever the default is for my desktop environment and for terminal I always go for Source Code Pro.

Dejavu.

I really like CaskaydiaCo[d|v]e.

No clue, the default one, in MX Xfce I think it's noto

I like the new intel mono, and ubuntu for non-mono.

MathJax Sans Serif

Not common, but Modern DOS is a great nostalgic family of pixel-oriented fonts for terminals and such.

I use Terminus (ter-112n) for TTY, Source Code Pro for terminal emulators, and DejaVu, Liberation, and Noto for others

Taking a quick glance at the font packages I have installed, I find the Liberation family, Freefont, the old MS core fonts, a couple of Bitstream Vera Sans variations (including Deja Vu), and the ancient URW fonts, plus a couple of CJK-specific fonts, since I need those characters just often enough for their absence to be noticed.
Freefont has decent coverage of what was in Unicode as of ten years ago, and so in combination with the CJK specialty fonts covers most common writing systems worldwide. I'm not particularly concerned about things like Anatolian hieroglyphs, a couple of hundred less-common emoji, or the Bitcoin symbol being missing.

For sans and serif font, Noto Sans and Noto Serif.

The default font in the web browser on Ubuntu look bad. Different length between the letters and size

Most of the documents I produce are converted to PDF or printed, so I use Nimbus Roman or Nimbus Sans (I believe). I do use Open Dyslexic font
For UI I really enjoy Inter, although Ubuntu, Roboto and IBM Plex Sans are also nice
For terminal I use Hack, although Source Code Pro is nice