CrunchBang ~ 465 Free Fonts for Ubuntu

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Saturday, October 13th, 2007

465 Free Fonts for Ubuntu

Update: A package update is now available for Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

Brian Kent is a prolific font designer. At 32 years old he has already amassed an impressive collection of handmade fonts. He's also a really nice guy and has agreed to let me package his free fonts for Ubuntu.

I have used Brian's fonts in many design projects. Some of my favourite fonts from his collection include:

3DLET

Example of 3DLET font.

Blackoninaut

Example of Blackoninaut font.

BLOX2

Example of Blox2 font.

Dephunked

Example of Dephunked font.

Symmetry

Example of Symmetry font.

Xtrusion

Example of Xtrusion font.

That was just 6 of the 465 free fonts in the package. And according to Brian, all of the fonts are Freeware and you can use them in anyway you want [personal use, commercial use, or whatever.]

How to Install the Fonts

You can browse and download Brian's fonts directly from his website. Or, to install all of the fonts simply follow the instructions below. The instructions should work for both Feisty and Gutsy.

1. Open your apt sources.list file for editing with the following terminal command:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

2. Add the following two lines to the bottom of the file:

deb     http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ubuntu gutsy main

3. Close gedit and issue the following terminal command to update apt:

sudo apt-get update

4. Still in the terminal, enter the following command to install the package:

sudo apt-get install ttf-aefonts

5. Enjoy your new fonts!

Why Package the Fonts?

I've recently joined the Launchpad Beta Testers team and I wanted to have a play with the Personal Package Archive [PPA] feature. This is my first attempt at packaging for Ubuntu and I wanted to package something that might be of use to other members of the community.

I found the process quite rewarding and at times a little puzzling — but I got there in the end. The packaging guide on the Ubuntu Wiki is fairly comprehensive and well worth a read if you're interested in packaging.

Tagged with: fonts, linux, ppa, typography, ubuntu

34 Responses to “465 Free Fonts for Ubuntu”

gord wrote, Saturday, October 13th, 2007

free is a little misleading, free as in you don't have to pay but not free as in freedom. can't modify the files without 'asking', essentially like a restrictive CC licence. shame really.
Philip wrote, Saturday, October 13th, 2007

@gord: not sure I would want to modify the font files but I do get your point.
Ari wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

@gord: Would that be freedom or GNU/freedom. Every license has restrictions. Public domain is free.
Bob wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

That's cool, and all, but I'd like them as a tarball so that other distros can easily partake in the goodness.
tws wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

does this work for edgy too?
Chris Murphy wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Hi Philip, Thanks for taking the time to bundle these. As a further explanation to gord's point, you may not want to modify them, but it'd be great if somebody who (for instance) spoke thai or arabic could expand the font to include the characters needed in their native language. There are several other reasons you'd want the fonts to be editable, such as those listed at http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL.

If Brian is willing to license the fonts under the Open Font License (http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=OFL) then they might even be considered for inclusion into Ubuntu (I have no authority on which to say that other than: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OpenFonts, but it looks to be the case).

It'd be great if he's willing to do so. If not, thanks for the great fonts anyway! - c
Willfe wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Is there a GPG key to install for these packages so apt doesn't whine about unverified/unsigned packages?

Thanks for putting these together, by the way. Great collection of fonts!
matt wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

So since you did this via packaging, are you planning on continuing to provide updates? Is there any reason for me to keep this in my sources?
Ramon Cahenzli wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Do these fonts include umlauts, Euro symbol and all the other funky special characters? Full Unicode set? ;)
Philip wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

@Bob: Sorry I forgot that there are other distros available :P You can grab the tarball here: http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ubuntu/pool/main/t/ttf-aefonts…

@tws: see above link and grab the tarball.

@Chris Murphy: Good point. Thanks for raising this, I'll contact Brian to see what his take is.

@Wilfe: My PGP public key is here: http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?search=0xFC2682F1&op=index

@matt: Yes, I'll be maintaining the package, however I don't foresee that I'll be updating it too often — maybe now-and-again as Brian releases new fonts.

@The Digg Crowd: Thanks for all the diggs, you rock!
Philip wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Do these fonts include umlauts, Euro symbol and all the other funky special characters? Full Unicode set?

I've not gone through all the fonts but I know some don't. As with most other decorative fonts the character sets are pretty limited.
Marc wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

So Windows users should stay away, eh?
Philip wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

@Marc: Not at all. I may be a GNU/Linux Ubuntu enthusiast but I have nothing against Windows or Windows users. Anyone can download the tarball.

Peace.
Timo wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Very useful info (how to Install fonts), thanks Philip.
Shinoda wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

"gksudo" is preferred over "sudo" for graphical apps (e.g. gedit).

Other than that thank you for the package and the author for his great work.
Dan wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Thanks for the great resource! Don't pay too much attention to the complainers. Great work!
Mike wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Thank you for the free fonts! Your hard work and creativity are very much appreciated. Don't listen to those morons about the license and keep up the excellent work!

Thanks Mike
Philip wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

@Mike: It's Brian that deserves the thanks, I just did the packaging :)
DaniFP wrote, Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Thanks. There are REALLY cool fonts!
Lockal wrote, Monday, October 15th, 2007

http://rapidshare.com/files/62652082/ttf-aefonts-0.0.1-1.noarch.rpm

RPM package for rpm-based linux distributions. Tested on openSUSE 10.3
bart wrote, Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Thank you for your great work.The fonts are really nice to use for my websites!
hron84 wrote, Thursday, October 18th, 2007

http://gentoo-hron.homelinux.org/svn/repos/gentoo-hron/trunk/media-fonts/ttf-aefonts/ttf-aefonts-0.0.1.ebuild

Gentoo Linux ebuild.
Yellowjester wrote, Friday, October 19th, 2007

I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. thanks.
John wrote, Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Thank you, thank you, thank you, both the creator and packager!!! Now my art teacher will be jealous and don't get me started on my English teacher.

Woot.

Hopefully these can/will be expanded to include Russian characters!

And thank you for not making me register to post this comment!
Infurnus wrote, Saturday, October 27th, 2007

Excellent find, but i didn't digg 'ya came across stumble. Thanks for the efforts of putting this together.
Big Mean Mike wrote, Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Sincere thanks. Packaging like yours takes a lot of work out of collecting fonts, tossing them in the right place, rebuilding caches etc. Kudos also to Brian on the sweet fonts.
Sonja Elen Kisa wrote, Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated! ttf-aefonts Install these packages without verification [y/N]?

Is that warning normal??
Philip wrote, Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

@Sonja: Yes it's quite normal. I have a public OpenPGP key if you'd like to verify the packages, see: http://crunchbang.org/archives/2007/11/03/openpgp-key-install-for-ppa-and-apt/
Jerry wrote, Monday, April 21st, 2008

Thank You! I had a heck of a time finding decent fonts for Linux, let alone installing them! Bravo!
madduck wrote, Thursday, May 8th, 2008

If you'd be interested in maintaining these fonts and have them in Debian's non-free archive, Ubuntu could just sync them over and even more people would profit. I'd be happy to work with you on that and sponsor all your uploads to Debian.
Philip wrote, Sunday, May 11th, 2008

@madduck: That would be most excellent, thank you for your kind offer. I will mail you.
noso wrote, Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

For the part about commercial use, would it be cool to use them for a title of a book or for making banner advertisements? Also if I coloured them in and maybe used different filters on them to warp/bend etc… using The G.I.M.P.?
Philip wrote, Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

@noso: Hi, you can use the fonts for anything, commercial or non-commercial, it makes no difference :)
noso wrote, Thursday, June 5th, 2008

Cool… thanks!

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