CrunchBang - Code, Design & GNU/Linux

Aenigma Fonts for Ubuntu

Last October I packaged some free fonts for Ubuntu and made them available from my PPA on Launchpad. More recently, I have received some emails asking if I am going to update the package for Ubuntu Hardy Heron. As it happens, last month Martin F. Krafft kindly offered to help out with the package and sponsor its upload to Debian.

With Martin's guidance I have worked on the package and fixed numerous issues; though unfortunately, we have now hit a stumbling block regarding the package/fonts license. As a result of this, I am currently unsure if the package will pass Debian's strict quality control and make it into the repositories.

Still, as a result of this work, the package has been updated and is now available for Hardy.

Examples

The package itself contains a collection of over 400 fonts. The fonts were created by Brian Kent, who kindly agreed to let me package them for Ubuntu. There are numerous different types of fonts in the collection, see some examples below:

Embossing Tape:

Hack & Slash:

Hassle:

Licorice Strings:

Line Dings:

Stagnation:

Swirled:

Technique:

Unlearned:

Some more examples can be seen on the original post, 465 Free Fonts for Ubuntu.

Installing the fonts

You can grab the package directly from my PPA, or follow the instructions below to install:

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

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

2. Add the following line to the bottom of the file:

deb     http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ubuntu hardy 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-aenigma

5. Enjoy your new fonts!

Note: You can also browse and download Brian's fonts directly from his website.

License

See debian/copyright for details. Needless to say, the fonts are completely free and you are free to distribute the fonts further, create new fonts based on these fonts and make changes to the fonts — provided those changes are noted and the original fonts are still attributed to the original author.

Site Redesign & Fonts by Manfred Klein

I have been working on a small redesign of my website, again. Visually speaking, not much has changed; I have dropped the off-white background colour in favour of pure white, updated my Ubuntu advertisement, and changed the font used in my logo.

Regarding the new logo font, it is BastardusSans, one of Manfred Klein's many freely downloadable fonts. I really like Manfred Klein's fonts, not only because they are high quality and freely available, but because they are so diverse. Manfred Klein's portfolio features hundreds of decorative, historical, picture and text based fonts. If you are looking for a unique font for a new a project, do yourself a favour and go check out Manfred Klein's portfolio at TypOasis.

Back to the website redesign; as well as the visual changes mentioned above, I have also made changes to how the XHTML is formatted — just recently I seem to have been spending a lot of time browsing the web using Links; it was during one of these sessions when I noticed just how poorly my site was rendering in a text-based environment. I have now fixed this and my site should not only look better, but make more sense too :)

Other design alterations include:

• An updated print specific CSS file. Pages from my site should now print nicely [when printed from a modern browser.]

• A complete redesign of my personal wiki, the wiki design now matches that of my blog. I am still loving my Wikka Wakka Wiki installation, its hackability, speed and ease of use continue to impress. I did have a problem with spam comments last month, but it was easily fixed.

• A change to the font-family referenced in my site's CSS. Previously I had been specifying a range of sans-serif fonts, including but not limited to Arial and Verdana. I have changed this and the font used now is simply sans-serif. I am not sure how this change affects other systems, but IMHO, it makes for more readable copy on my Ubuntu Linux based systems.

• As mentioned at the top of this post, I have updated the one and only advert on my site. I have had one advertisement on my site since it started, it is a non-commercial advertisement for Ubuntu Linux. I have toyed with the idea of displaying Google Adsense, but I just cannot bring myself to do it, so instead I have updated my Ubuntu advert :) The image has been shamelessly ripped from the new Hardy Heron CD cover art. I have no idea who the three models are, or who photographed them, but I really like the image — there is something strangely appealing about this type of top-down photography. I am not sure of the legalities of ripping the image, but I am sure modifying it to be used as a webby advert will do no harm. See below for some resized versions:

Ubuntu Circle of Friends - 300 x 396 pixels

Ubuntu Circle of Friends - 200 x 246 pixels

Ubuntu Circle of Friends - 100 x 123 pixels

That pretty much covers my recent redesign efforts [although I have been tinkering for days and I am sure to have missed some minor details.] Finally, I have got some plans to include some new features on my site, namely a new bookmarking system and links to interesting posts and articles from my shared Google Reader feed. I will post more details about this as and when I get around to scripting the features in.

Liberation Fonts for Ubuntu

Last night I read a post by Christer Edwards about installing the free Liberation fonts from Red Hat. I remember reading about and installing these fonts when they were first released. I also remember thinking that they do make good free alternatives to some of the more popular commercial fonts [Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New etc.]

Liberation Examples

Packaged for Ubuntu

I was surprised when reading Christer's instructions that there wasn't a package available to easily install these fonts. With that in mind I made one and uploaded it to my PPA on Launchpad.

You can get the .deb file here: http://launchpadlibrarian.net/10220496/ttf-liberation_0.0.1-0ubuntu1%7Eppa2_all.deb

Or, to install via apt 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:

gksudo 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-liberation

5. Enjoy your new fonts!

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

Blackoninaut

BLOX2

Dephunked

Symmetry

Xtrusion

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.

Testing Type With Typetester

Typetester is a tool for comparing type on screen. It's an excellent tool for any web designer who wants to be able to quickly check how a specific font renders to screen. Options include setting sizes, line-height, letter-spacing, alignment and more. You can compare up to 3 fonts at anyone time and there is a preconfigured list of popular fonts available on Windows and Mac platforms [what no linux?] You can also use fonts from your own system.

All in all, Typetester is a valuable tool.