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Related to Ubuntu's Unity (might apply to other environments):

I remember last time I switched from Windows (~3 years ago) it was once again harsh on my eyes. The way things (fonts?) are rendered is just different.

What made me survive the first days was switching the default font to Roboto Condensed (of Google fame) [1] with:

  sudo apt-get install fonts-roboto unity-tweak-tool 
I wouldn't want to trade it for any other OS currently. It just looks so good. But I guess it is more because I got used to it than anything else.

If you find what works for you (right hardware, right kernel), issues can be minimal. I definitely don't consider it to be buggy. Maybe the way sound output switching works is a bit awkward, but that's about it.

[1] http://pasteboard.co/6zgtPnMb7.png




Curiously for me it's the opposite, I like very much the default Unity (14.04) font / anti-aliasing / rendering, I find it is much easier/pleasant to read that the default in Windows (Segoe UI?), bolder and "smoother", so to speak.

I've tried calibrating the ClearType features and it's better, but still way worse than the Ubuntu default. Has anyone felt the same and/or found any solution?


First time I hear something other than praise for Ubuntu fonts. Bodhi Linux was the only distro I tried that had terrible fonts, all others were good or very good and I tried about 10 of them.


I definitely didn't want to say they are bad.

For me, personally, the switch from Windows was rough. Not because I consider any of them to be superior, but because the way things are rendered is just so different.

A more compact font (the 'Condensed' part) helped me a lot.

So many other things (window animations, shadows, straight borders,...) I really love. And the compact font is the finishing touch for my untrained eye.




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