Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today we are kicking off the Ubuntu Font BETA testing. This is a happy day!
Today all Ubuntu Members will have access to a private PPA so that they can use, test and enjoy the font.
The first four variants of the font family are scheduled for completion 8 August 2010 and this is when we aim to do a phased beta to anyone who is interested, and then to release the font to everyone.
For some background and to remind yourself about the project here are Bruno Maag’s UDS sessions on video:
- Plenary session (34:45 into the video)
- Slides from Presentation: Font Development
- Follow-up session on the font: UDS Session
How do I get it?
I want to tell you but I also want you to read the rest of the announcement so I am going to put that information at the end. I am sorry, I have kept it as short as possible, I promise!
What do I get?
For now, only the regular is available for testing, bold comes next. We will announce as more becomes available so you can make sure you have latest.
The Ubuntu font (family) is open-type ttf based font format and fully unicode compliant. It contains Latin A and B extended character sets, Greek Polytonic and Cyrillic extended. The font has been hinted for superior screen display. Its spacing and kerning is optimised for body copy sizes.
How do I give feedback?
We’ve created a font testing tool at fonttest.design.canonical.com. It has some example text and the ability for you to paste in your own text, so if you find a problem you can highlight the exact use of the font and submit your feedback right from the form. It’s connected to Launchpad so you can log in with your existing credentials.
At this stage we would like to encourage you to test the font on screen and print, on different platforms and in different applications.
Please ensure that all feedback contains details of:
- medium (paper or screen)
- platform (operating system including version number)
- application (including version number)
- a description of the problem
- and a screenshot where appropriate
- when printing please include make of printer and driver including version.
The tool at fonttest.design.canonical.com should help a bit so please feel free to go and give it a go. (Bugs can be reported against the tool at: https://launchpad.net/lp-bug-form.)
What will happen with the feedback?
Feedback will be accumulated for analysis and responded to fortnightly. We anticipate high volume feedback so the primary method for response will be the updated font and a list of changes and known issues.
When does everyone get it?
The font is currently in development and is scheduled to be shipped in Ubuntu 10.10. It will be free for everyone to use and share. For now, the exact details of the license are not confirmed.
Do I need to know anything else?
Please note that the stylistic direction has been set.
This is how you get it
Sometime today if you’re an Ubuntu member you’ll get an email inviting you to the private PPA with instructions:
-
This email will include a link to the private PPA page on Launchpad with the proper sources.list: http://launchpad.net/people/+me/+archivesubscriptions Please note that add-apt-repository will NOT WORK; you need to add the sources.list information that is available in the link aboveIt takes Launchpad a moment or two to generate your little private PPA, so please be patient as it generates a Packages.gz file.The following command adds the PPA’s GPG key to your keyring: sudo apt-key adv ––keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com ––recv-keys 42F834ECPlease just don’t just install the .deb, make sure the Private PPA is working for you so you can get font updates.
Using the font.
The font is named “UbuntuBeta” and the package name is ubuntu-private-nda-fonts.See here if you want to know how to change fonts.
Updated instructions – December 2010
- Ubuntu 10.10 and above ship with the
ttf-ubuntu-font-familypackage already installed (for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS you will need to installttf-ubuntu-font-familyand select it manually. - For using on web sites visit “Ubuntu – Use this font” at the Google Font Directory
- For source code and everything else, visit and link to font.ubuntu.com.
And finally
This font is the result of a lot of great work by a lot of talented people. Together we can make it outstanding. We hope very much that you will enjoy using it and look forward to your participation in this final sprint to the finish.
The link to the font test doesn’t work.
Thanks @lazza. I think I was about 2 seconds ahead of you thanks to and471. Please try again, should all be in order now.
Looking great!!!
Great news! I’m trying to get the font on my system right now.
Just curious: has the design team already decided on the default settings in the font section of the appearance editor? I.e. default size and weight for each category.
I got “You do not have any current subscriptions to private archives” message
Im getting a 404 not found on the ppa for 32 bit ubuntu maverick. Any chance someone could add it to the build?
Oh and ive been using the font anyway since OMG Ubuntu pulled it from the .pdf files it was embedded into. It does look great in the interface.
Can someone post a screenshot of how the font looks at various sizes? Like a screenshot of the font install dialog?
Gustavo: are you an Ubuntu Member? If not, then you don’t have access to the PPA.
Ivanka: small thingy: the blog changed the double hyphen sequence ‘–’ in the command for retrieving the repository key with the – character, and therefore the command doesn’t work.
Ah got it I just added the ppa wrong my bad
@sense Fixed. Thanks!
The rumors talks about having all the languages added to this theme. is Hebrew going to be added too?
I wonder if it will be included in Ubuntu maverick by default….
As I’m not an Ubuntu member (yet), I’ll have to wait but I have a question: how will users be able to contribute new characters to the font? It would be great if we could ensure that the range of supported characters covers the widest range of languages possible.
The character pretifier ate the double hyphens in
“sudo apt-key adv ––keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com ––recv-keys 42F834EC” and replaced them with typographic blahdashes or something.
If you see “usage: gpg [options] [filename]“, then that’s probably your problem. Backspace them and type real hyphens.
I get an error 401 with the PPA. I thought private PPAs used to have extra authentication stuff added in? The URL provided on the PPA page doesn’t include that. Could be the problem.
I’m stunned that our documentation is so poor that “How to change fonts” links to an ad-ridden blog post.
How do you know if you’re an ubuntu member?
Michael:
You’d be a member of ~ubuntumembers on Launchpad, and you’ll likely remember having filled out a wiki page application and gone through an interview process with the CC (if it was a while ago), a RMB, or a developer board (if you’re a developer).
@michael
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership
@maco you go here https://edge.launchpad.net/~shanepatrickfagan/+archivesubscriptions and go to the right of the page click view and add that ppa. Then it should work. I got a 404 but that wasnt the right place.
Or I mean it should be your launchpad nick not mine :)
Hi everyone,
On this page:
http://launchpad.net/people/+me/+archivesubscriptions
Click “View” and it should show you what the deb line should look like in your /etc/apt/sources.list.
It should be something like “deb https://jorge:blahblahblah@private-ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-beta-testing/ppa/ubuntu maverick main # Personal access for Jorge blah blah”
It’s generated per user. I’ve updated the description on the ppa page to make more sense. Sorry for the confusion.
great!! already using it rocks!!!, can wait to use it on my slides
How can i get it? I am not Ubuntu member. Can anyone send ttf file on my email klvru(at)rambler.ru ??? I want to see it. :)
Looks like my last comment didn’t get through so here it is, if you go here: http://launchpad.net/people/+me/+archivesubscriptions
And click on the “View” link it will give you the right deb line (it’s unique per user).
The “Technical details” instructions on the PPA page won’t work; I’ve updated the page to reflect this: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-font-beta-testing/+archive/ppa
Hey Ivanka I have one kinda weird question I was using the font and i noticed that in terminal that the @shane-laptop the s and the @ are overlapping. The bug isnt showing up on fonttest so im wondering how to report it or if its a bug or not. Its not very bad its just a little overlap.
Ah, I’d just been checking in for more information about this two weeks ago! I’m thrilled to have this opportunity and can’t wait to see just what the font looks like in every day usage. :)
Someone can send me the new font at dreyes@uci.cu ?? thanks to all.
It sounds from the carefully vague wording that this font is going to be proprietary.
If you really want to call your font an improvement over Bitstream Vera, you’ll need to have an equally permissive license.
Hi,
What “Ubuntu member” really means? I use Ubuntu, I have a Launchpad account for years and I’ve signed the Ubuntu Code of Conduct long time ago, too. (which made the status ‘ubuntero’ appeared of my profile or somewhere, but not anymore apparently).
Is this sufficient or have I something more to do now? I really would like to test the font :)
Looking nice.
Valeriy, Dairo, Nicolas: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership
Mike: If it was proprietary, it couldn’t be shipped by default in Ubuntu.
So, If it’s not proprietary then WHY it’s not shared with ALL community? Guy, who created that font, is so greedy?
@CheGuevara_ when you pay to have something developed then you can set the rules. The only greedy person here is you.
I would love an email of the font as well:
jkmoore [AT] juno [DOT] com
Thank you.
My main complaint with modern fonts is that the combination “rn” looks awfully like “m”.I often have to stop and look carefully to make the distinction. What will this font do to help solve this problem?
Oh dear, that comment did not work well in the font on my browser. Let me spell it out:
My main complaint with modern fonts is the the combination “rn” (lower case RN) looks awfully like “m” (lower case M). For example, the words “modem” (MODEM) and “modern” (MODERN). I often have to stop and look carefully to make the distinction. What will this font do to help solve this problem?
(I am glad that you distinguish between the upper case of “i” and the lower case of “L”.)
lovejet [at] gmail.com plz :)
Woah, maybe I misunderstood the font feedback tool, but is the default font in Ubuntu going to be a serif font? That will be beyond-the-pale-fugly. Unusably fugly. Installing Ubuntu will require changing the font immediately upon installing. If the default font is serif and proprietary I’ll prolly ditch Ubuntu and go back to Fedora. If I have to tweak my interface post install I might as well just go with Fedora.
Awesome! Are you going to make a monospace font?
wclark80 at live dot com
please?
What will the “source code” for this font be? Many open fonts are released in binary TTF/OTF format. Increasingly, some of the better ones are stored in version control and use FontForge format as source. For more font best practices, check out pkg-font’s foo-open-font-sources repository:
http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-fonts/foo-open-font-sources/#_foo-open-font-sources_
What software are the font designers using to create the new font? Is it the FLOSS font stack in Debian/Ubuntu (fontforge, xgridfit etc) or some proprietary package?
What software are the font designers using to create the new font?
http://www.daltonmaag.com/docs/FontDevelopment.pdf
Fontlab Studio – Windows.
Poor, very poor.
Very cool design. Do you planning to create cyrillic letters in the same style as english ones? It would be cool.
Looking at what Mike Th3 wrote. Yes I was saddened to see that Bruno was using propriety software (well OK I’ll say it) Windows to create the beta designs for the most important FOSS font release for many a year. Billy the 3rd must be laughing his socks off. :(
xRay
Please consider that many people use size 8 as the default on their desktops, because the size 10 is way too big.
new font – hmmm, maybe it’s the highest time to do something with bad scaling images by Firefox ? There are some fixes in PPA, but still not in official packages….
This is looking great, thanks for posting the instructions. Can’t wait for the monospace version!
Canonical at least needs to describe what lengths they went to to find a professional font designer willing to try to use fontforge and linux (maybe even Ubuntu) before they settled with a designer using proprietary software. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the designer they chose; it just seems that this would have been a great opportunity for Canonical to sponsor / speed up the development of linux design software.
Font looks nice.
Disappointed.
If someone wants the font, it was leaked some time ago and it’s available at omgbuntu. It’s almost 100% complete (numbers, ñ, {}[]`+ç, ) and everything you may expect
Btw, that font is not probably the latest version of it, so don’t send feedback to canonical unless you have the official one.
I am a ubuntu member and never got an invite.
So, where or how is this font availbale? Can I just have a link without all of the tech babble and project-speek? No?
MmmmOK…
*surfs on*
You think putting something at the end of an article will make people read the entire thing to get to it? I don’t think you understand how reading works, lady.
I gave up using Ubuntu (or any other Linux for that matter) on my desktops. A new font is not gonna change that. The fact that the designer needed to use Windows to get the job done kinda proves me right.
I third the need for the addition of Hebrew glyphs.
Right now Ubuntu ships with no fonts that display Hebrew text well, and all Israeli Ubuntu users need to install Microsoft fonts (Tahoma usually) to use the system. We’re a little nation but we are a tech leader, it is not a market that Canonical can afford to lose.
Greek and Cyrillic will be in the 10.10 release and Hebrew will come along a little later.
@Mike that’s odd. If you are an Ubuntu Member you should have got an email from Launchpad.
Will this help my Ubuntu computer run more reliably?
Nice looking font, and I appreciate the effort for the multi-language support.
Anyway, far from being an ‘integralist’, it tastes a little bitter to me having to use Microsoft VisualTrueType to create Ubuntu fonts…
Great!
I think it’s great that canonical have created a new font. I don’t really have an issue with it being a closed beta however once again the design teams lack of communication with the community is the most disappointing aspect.
This should be a good thing. It should generate a huge buzz that canonical / ubuntu can use to build the excitement around the next release.
This should have said something like
“Today we are kicking off the Ubuntu Font private BETA testing for all Ubuntu Members. This is a happy day!
The font is scheduled for completion 8th August and this is when we aim to open the beta to everyone.
At the moment we are unsure of the exact license however it will be distributed under a license appropriate for a free software project. ”
It’s only a slight change in wording but it
a) Gives people incentive to become an ubuntu member
b) Assures the rest of the community that the they will get a chance to preview the font and report issues with applications / use cases.
c) Assures everyone that the font is not proprietary.
(if it _is_ proprietary then really whats the point in making another font ?)
We appreciate the effort the design team is going to in order to be a part of the community. I think a few small steps is all that’s needed in order for them to better engage in the community.
Kerning in Cyrillic is terrible, glyphs looks great – I like it. If I do not Ubuntu member how can I help?
Is this used for the new Ubuntu title as well, the one which had only letters U B N T complete for 10.04 ?
There’s a leaked one all over the internet. I downloaded it and it’s on my dropbox.
great fonts for better design！
This is bad PR.
Using windows to develop a Free font?
Come on …
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-wallpapers/+bug/357218
Macs to make the wallpapers, Windows to make the fonts. Does anyone at canonical use linux? That certainly explains the quality of ubuntu releases
Esperandola con muchas ganas.
Muy buen trabajo
Solo falta 1 dia!!
How I can download this fonts?
Have I missed something? Have I been redirected @microsoft.com? Hidden PPAs for a secret “community” of “ubuntu members”? Downloading stolen fonts from pirate servers? I though we’d left this behind when joining the GNU/Linux route…
Do you need help with designing Hebrew glyphs to this font?
Hello Canoncial,
I use Ubuntu 10.o4 and when Ubuntu 10.10 will arrive, I’ll replace it. But I would like to tell anything…
I’m member of Launchpad, in spite of I being not able to enter in Ubuntu’s URl that you shared with us, I didn’t desisted, I could enter in the UBuntu private topics because I became Ubuntu member. I got the fonts and I got impressed when I saw with my pure vision the Ubuntu fonts. I was bewitched by these fonts. Ubuntu fonts are very similiar to Aller fonts. But Ubuntu fonts are better than Aller fonts, are elegant, beautiful and charming.
I encourage you to create the font “Ubuntu Unicase”, if you don’t know what unicase is, search for Perla Unicase, Filosofia Unicase, Fono Unicase, Hermes Unicase, Pharmacy, Kerning Unicase, Mean 26, BradbySans Light, Bradbury Unicase, etc. and clear that you’ll see and what will “Neo Sans unicase” font be.
I counsel you to create the Ubuntu unicase fonts for which we don’t use expensive and paid unicase fonts and forget of using Neo Sans and Neo SansUnicase fonts which are officially used by Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games
I’m type design and graphic design student. I’m good in creating the unicase fonts. I know the unicase’s secrets.
I tested Ubuntu on my new notebook and I got amazed with Ubuntu’s desktop. Didn’t you know orange is my favourite colour, althought blue, green, white and other official colours of Vancouver 2010 and Rio 2016 be my favourite colours? Now I don’t know if Ubunut’s colour is purple or violet, but it’s my new another colour! It’s a beautiful, elegant and gallant!
Of course that I like your blog, your blog pleases me enought with these elegant colours!
Continue working and bettering the Ubuntu Linux! Don’t desist of developping this OS!
Gustavo Reis
From Brazil
i get the same error; did you solve the issue?
New Ubuntu font is really looking good, great job.
It’s possible reduce the width of letters (you can see liberation fonts from fedora)
It’s importan to “maximize” (more text on same horizontal space) nautilus, text editors, ide’s (eclipse)
The lower case ‘g’ doesn’t underline well.
Otherwise, looks fantastic.
Probabilitatea sa intalnesti pe cineva cunoscut creste atunci cand esti cu cineva cu care nu trebuie sa fii vazut.
Watch out, theres a big error in your blog.
Why couldn’t you just download it and install it like a normal person font?
Ubuntu. Making the obscure obtuse.
font.ubuntu.com
I liked how you presented this post in an organized manner. Now, it’s easy for me to try the directions and to actually make it work. Thanks so much! :)
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There are certainly a lot of small bits of info like that to take into consideration. That is a great point to bring up. I offer the thoughts above as general inspiration but clearly there are issues like the one you bring up where the most important thing will be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your job is clearly identified as a fair game. Both boys and girls feel the impact of just a moment’s pleasure, for the rest of their lives.