Why Liberation fonts?

[maybeway36]

You can already substitude Nimbus Roman No9 L or FreeSerif for Times, Nimbus Sans L or FreeSans for Arial/Helvetica, and Nimbus Mono L or FreeMono for Courier. In fact, the Nimbus fonts are even metric-compatible. Why did Red Hat decide to make the Liberation fonts? Was it because of licensing issues (GPL)?

[samwyse]

The Liberation fonts are a lot sharper than Nimbus* and Free* fonts. I don't know about the licensing.

[Forrest Gumpp]

I can't answer for Red Hat, but as a user I have always regarded Nimbus Roman No.9 as a very poor substitute for Times New Roman. I can't quite put a finger on it, but I think it has something to do with the kerning of it. It is certainly, to my eye, less readable. Some combinations of letters are downright confusing.

That's why I found your post about FreeSerif so useful. I shall definitely give it a try.

[FuturePilot]

I've always found Nimbus Roman No. 9 to be a good substitute for Times New Roman. I printed a paper out in Times New Roman and also in Nimbus Roman No. 9 and you could barely tell them apart.

[macogw]

I wasn't aware there were any other fonts that were the exact same sizes as the MS ones.

I personally like Liberation Serif more than Times New Roman. The sharp serifs look very nice.

[maybeway36]

The main problem with the Free* fonts is they don't render real well at low resolutions. They do look nice on paper, though.

[banjobacon]

You can already substitude Nimbus Roman No9 L or FreeSerif for Times, Nimbus Sans L or FreeSans for Arial/Helvetica, and Nimbus Mono L or FreeMono for Courier. In fact, the Nimbus fonts are even metric-compatible. Why did Red Hat decide to make the Liberation fonts? Was it because of licensing issues (GPL)?

They have an explanation on their website (http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/). They wanted freely licensed fonts that were the metric equivalents of widely-used Microsoft fonts. Apparently that did not exist.

[Pekkalainen]

Tried the Liberation fonts real quick and I must say those were the most awful fonts I have ever tried. On my 24" Dell monitor they look like a blurry mess.

[banjobacon]

Tried the Liberation fonts real quick and I must say those were the most awful fonts I have ever tried. On my 24" Dell monitor they look like a blurry mess.

The link I provided explains that the fonts were released in two staged. The first release lacked full hinting capabilities. Maybe that's the one you tried?

[macogw]

IMO, hinting makes the "blurry mess" worse. I turn off subpixel smoothing junk because of that.

[Forrest Gumpp]

With the possible arrival in the not too distant future of Ubuntu4U, is there by any chance going to be a Peoples' Liberation Font available as the default screen font?