Make Fonts Look Nice in Ubuntu Linux

After much tweaking, I finally figured out a very simple way to make fonts in Linux look just like they did in windows. Linux has poor support for Fonts in the default installation. I don't know why this is, and I won't bother you with a long rant about it. It needs to be fixed, imo, but that's how it is.

How to fix:

Go to the top menu bar and click on SYSTEM | PREFERENCES | APPEARANCE.

Click on the fonts tab.

Select the radio button for "Subpixel Smoothing" if you have an LCD like I do (most people do these days).

Then click on the details button and select NO HINTING or HINTING NONE.

That will smooth them out just like Windows Cleartype.

Next, you can also install a package that contains fonts that are just like those in Windows.

Go to APPLICATIONS | ADD/REMOVE....

Search on MS Core Fonts. Select it for installation, and install. Done. Now you have Verdana, Arial, and other common Microsoft fonts on your linux installation, and your display of Web pages should improve dramatically.

Back in the days when I was running earlier Linux distributions, I used to have a devil of a time with fonts in Linux. They looked like crap, web pages would display too large of text here, too small there, and it was always too blurry or too pixelated. They have truly improved things in Linux to a professional level where fonts are concerned.