3d ago

Your favorite system fonts?

What fonts are you currently using on your system? Which do you think is best for the terminal or for your desktop environment?

(updates) Ok I think I'm a fan of Ubuntu nerd fonts right now

78 comments

Inter for desktop and the nerd-font variant of JetBrainMono for Terminal.
- +1 for Inter. Kind of reminds me of San Francisco :)
- Lol I re-discovered Inter about 10 minutes ago, I find it a little better than Noto Sans. (edit) I'm not really sure, maybe I've gotten too used to the Notos.

I've been enjoying Fira Sans and Fira Mono for far too long: https://mozilla.github.io/Fira/

Please don't hate me but for desktop I use Segoe UI. After years of using it everything else looks just kinda off and cheap to me. Similar to when folder icons are not yellow
- Nothing wrong with that! I prefer Inter for nearly all UIs these days, but I still think Segoe UI looks better than GNOME's current default of Cantarell.
- It is a well-designed system font. Say what you will about Microsoft but they do know how to make a good font or two.

Iosevka.
- Same. I've compiled a custom variant of Iosevka for terminal and code, because I want to have some chars in a certain way, especially the 0 and the & for even better readability. I used to have Monoid for code and terminal, but it the pixel perfect size for 12pt was getting too small for me and my eyes are not getting any better. Iosevka looks better even after some hinting by the OS.
  On the rest of the desktop UI I use B612, because it is very ledgible, I recently switch over from the hyperledible Atkinson font. Before that I had Gidole on the desktop. Very pleasing, but not that readable at same font size.
- Iosevka fits very well with East Asian characters, if you need those.
  I find it narrower than I like otherwise, but I need Japanese characters often enough that I put up with it for my terminal.

I've been a fan of IBM Plex for a while now.

Ubuntu font. Idk why but I like it.
- I agree! Nice memories of hitting backspace in a Linux Mint terminal and hearing that weird-ass BWOUP sound.
  I recommend Ubuntu Mono for Termux users. Look at this black-background beauty -- way better than the angly flat default

Since basically forever I use DejaVu Sans for UI elements and DejaVu Mono for the terminal.
- me too, I loved Verdana before I discovered FOSS and DejaVu Sans is basically FOSS Verdana
- I always use Dejavu sans mono for terminal and programming too. I think its the best in terms of readability where indentation is important

I've been using Source Code Pro for a while now. Might not be the best, but it does the job for me.
- me too, i use it for terminal as well

For desktop, I've liked Lato, Source Sans Pro, and Inter to name three.

For terminal, I used Iosevka's customizer to create a gorgeous Fira Mono-like variant that I call Iosevka Firesque:

 undefined

    
[buildPlans.IosevkaFiresque]
family = "Iosevka Firesque"
spacing = "term"
serifs = "sans"
noCvSs = true
exportGlyphNames = false

  [buildPlans.IosevkaFiresque.variants]
  inherits = "ss05"

    [buildPlans.IosevkaFiresque.variants.design]
    capital-g = "toothless-corner-serifless-hooked"
    capital-q = "crossing-baseline"
    g = "single-storey-serifed"
    long-s = "bent-hook-tailed"
    cyrl-a = "single-storey-earless-corner-serifed"
    cyrl-ve = "standard-interrupted-serifless"
    cyrl-capital-ze = "unilateral-serifed"
    cyrl-ze = "unilateral-serifed"
    cyrl-capital-en = "top-left-bottom-right-serifed"
    cyrl-en = "top-left-bottom-right-serifed"
    cyrl-capital-er = "open-serifless"
    cyrl-er = "earless-corner-serifless"
    cyrl-capital-u = "cursive-flat-hook-serifless"
    cyrl-u = "curly-motion-serifed"
    cyrl-capital-e = "unilateral-bottom-serifed"
    cyrl-e = "unilateral-bottom-serifed"
    brace = "straight"
    ampersand = "upper-open"
    at = "threefold"
    cent = "open"

Protomolecule for that scifi feel
- As a huge expanse fan, I'm glad someone brought this to life! (Shout-out for the space the nation podcast if you like nerds breaking down the episodes and need a good back catalog for the dark winter days)
  https://github.com/ThinkDualBrain/Protomolecule
- Protomolecule everywhere? 0.o
  Scifi fonts remind me of old Rainmeter configurations. Wonder if Rainmeter ricing is still around
  
  Except the terminal and a few other places.
  While it's very good looking, it's not extremely practical with no difference (almost) between lower case and upper case letters.

Hack nerd font is my go to for terminal use.

For terminal/editor I went through CodingFont and ended up on Noto Sans Mono. Before that I used Source Code Pro for years. Both patched for nerd fonts, obviously.
- I wish to put in a plug for Noto Sans Semicondensed for spreadsheets, although not generally for system-wide use.
  I recommend it for my Tonto2 List Maker script, which uses a spreadsheet layout. Noto Sans Semicondensed has "tabular figures," which means you can use it in tables to align digits and decimals with simple spaces and still have the look of a proportionally spaced font for text.
  Noto Sans Semicondensed is available from Google, of course, but Linux Users will be more likely to install the fonts-noto-core package.

Lexend Deca for me. A mix of a dyslexoc-font, Arial and a bit of the roundness of Comic Sans. (Sorry, probably bad examples, am no font nerd)
- I read through the website, and it feels... odd.
  Is this font's only purpose to be variable-width tunable?
  The website has this interesting showcase:
  "[Student fluency] is measured in Words Correct Per Minute... Each student read out loud a passage set in a control of Times New Roman, then four of the Lexend Series — Deca, Exa, Giga, and Mega."
  They even give example text for the viewer in both fonts. Of course, Times New Roman was blown out of the water, and the viewer can feel it.
  But... this is apples to oranges. Of course the viewer can feel it, Times New Roman is a freakin' serif, and there are a quinquagintillion sans serifs for small digital text, for good reason! Then what does this font have over other sans fonts? I couldn't find the "Stanford study" or any other comparisons, but if I were to surmise a guess:
  "Variable font technology allows for continuous selection of the Lexend Series to find the specific setting for an individual student."
  It's to be able to adapt for a student reader's preferences.
  I dunno, the site's framing of "changing the way the world reads" feels disingenuous -- it's a nice sans tho.
  
  Ok, I never dug so deep, I just really like the design, I did not know (or forgot) their ambicious/overblown claims

any with a dotted zero, extra points for italic.

For sans-serif, I use Mona Sans. For monospace, I use Monaspace. I think it's a good-looking combination.

U001 is my main system font as a clone of Univers. Monospace is Berkeley Mono—it might be paid/proprietary but boy does it look nice & was an upgrade from several years with Iosevka. JuliaMono is its fallback though since I use Unicode with frequency & Berkeley doesn’t cover all the symbols I use.
The important part is if you care anything about your fonts, you won’t destroy them by patching in that uncurated hodgepodge called “Nerd Fonts” clobbering used symbols or the wrought-with-false-positive “coding ligatures” which is not how ligatures are supposed to be used but programmers refuse to demand Unicode support in their languages to fix the problem.
- U001 is new to me, so here's a link for others to look it up.
  https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/u001
  
  The license is Aladdin which is kinda predates GPL but allows free usage if you aren’t shipping the font with your own competing paid software.

Gohu Font Nerd is a nice small bitmap font I'm fond of. Only issue is the size for high DPI monitors, but the JetBrainsMono nerd font is a nice vector font that's easy on the eyes (quite stereotypical/cliché, but that's for a reason).
- Dropping a link for others since it's the first time I heard of it.
  https://font.gohu.org/
- Interesting. What makes you use bitmaps as a system font?
  Gohu:
  
  I get it for TTYs. Though for TTYs nothing will take me away from Terminus :]
  
  What makes you use bitmaps as a system font?
  I like the aesthetic of bitmaps. Personal preference

I find comic sans mono actually looks surprisingly nice for coding and terminal.

I use M+ Fonts for most of my stuff.

I love Eurostile Regular. Git it at https://freefonts.co/fonts/eurostile-regular

I've been using Fantasque sans mono for a bunch of years now.

Code new roman! It's so cosy, and readable. I am a sucker for fonts with the cursive styled 'a'

I like Delugia for any monospace needs. It's a nerdfont, and it's nicely readable without looking too chunky.
- Ah, looks like it's a pre-nerdified cascadia! Not my personal style, but I know a few that love cascadia.
  https://github.com/adam7/delugia-code

I like Maple Mono https://github.com/subframe7536/maple-font
- An independent open source font, interesting. Looks pretty too, especially for multiple colors

I always end up with SF Pro Display for my desktop. For terminal I’m happy with several mentioned here.
- There are a lot of San Francisco fonts. Have you tried all of them? :p
  
  ::: spoiler 🟨 preview: Other SF fonts

Fantasque

Fixedsys
- Ohh, that's what that 8bit-y font is called.
  ...wait. Why would you use 8bit as a system font???

Lato, League Spartan, League Gothic are my three most used fonts by a wide margin. Lato and its variety of weights for most things, League when I am doing design work and need a cleaner title or header.
Lately ive been weirdly taken with TT2020 Style G, which is an odd name for a no-name font that replicates an old imperfect typewriter. For whatever reason, switching my writing software to that (Manuscript) suddenly fired up my writing flow.

I love Cartograph CF for the terminal and code editor. I like the handwriting-style italic variant, and it has programming ligatures. And of course I like the way the font looks.
There is an open-source font, Victor Mono, that also has a handwriting-style italic variant and programming ligatures. Otherwise its style is quite different.
- Why were you downvoted? Cartograph CF is rather pretty - its italics aren't so bad either. But Victor Mono's cursive comments... yeesh

Iosevka

It's actually preinstalled in a lot of systems. You can check via
gnome-font-viewer or find /usr/share/fonts -name "*Nimbus*"

Ubuntu

i want serifs. I use Go Mono for monospaced text. i've yet to find a good proportional slab serif font to match though.
- By proportional slab serif do you mean unmonospacing the monospace like what Ubuntu does? I guess that's why Go Proportional wouldn't work being a sans serif
  
  yeah just using the same characters but "squished" doesn't work since the serifs take up the character space. you need a font designed as proportional. slab serif just means that the serifs are squared rather than pointed like on Times.

I know that this will anger some people, but I just use the defaults and I don't get why there are so many fonts, since they don't seem that much different to me.
- I’m design nerd and definitely appreciate the variety but you don’t gotta be. The defaults are generally pretty good (if not great) with any major OS these days.
- I don't get why there are so many fonts
  Because anyone can design one.

Fira Code and Caskaydia Cove Nerd Font for monospace. For other uses, I'm usually good with whatever the system ships with.

Whatever comes default with the current system.

Fira Sans / FiraGO by Mozilla, and the new SUSE font by SUSE.

Pusab (I'm a gd player)

I mostly use an android, and the default font is Ideal Sans Light. On my system, Arial Nova, Courier Prime, Helvetica Neue, Ideal Sans Book and a few others are regulars.
Every once in a while I get this itch which ends up in getting a new favourite font.

I switched to Commit Mono for Terminal not too long ago but I really like it. Otherwise I use Cantarell but only because it is default and I never felt the need to change it.

@SolarPunker I use Exo2 as desktop font and FantasqueSansMono in terminal.

Ubuntu Mono for terminal, code, and data, Open Sans for the rest

I don’t have a reason to move away from the Fedora defaults except for monospaced fonts.
Terminal wise, terminus is my default. It’s so clean, and it looks good without anti-aliasing.
Roboto Mono is my current preference for monospaced fonts.
Adobe Source Code Pro and JetBrains Mono are good alternatives as well.

0xProto

VictorMono, has a cool cursive, mono spaced font.

Whatever the default font is

Verdana, Tahoma and Source code pro is good for eyes

I don't have a favorite system font, am I meant to? I did try to play with fonts at one point but the process of finding fonts and then figuring out how to install them was a bit much.

78 comments