100 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
100 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
[[!meta title="Xorg terminal emulator font list"]]
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## Introduction
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This page describes fonts I tested for usability in
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a terminal emulator. The ratings may be highly subjective
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and describe my way to find good fonts.
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This site is inspired by the
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[Nice fonts for X terminals](http://adamspiers.org/computing/zsh/files/prompts/X_fonts.README)
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site. It does not try to make things better, just again
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to find my personal preferences.
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## How I tested
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I'm using a small script named **urxvt-font-change**,
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which is part of the nsbin git repository. This script
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allows me to dynamically change the font in the running
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terminal. Besides searching around the net for font names,
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I've used two local sources:
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* xlsfonts (core X font subsystem)
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* fc-list (xft)
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So I load a new font, issue an **ls** in my home directory
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(which is pretty much mixed up) and decide whether I can
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read the content easily or not and whether it made
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some kind of special impression.
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Reloading or adding core fonts can be via
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xset fp+ /usr/share/fonts/local/
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xset fp rehash
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## Objectives
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There are a lot of different objectives for choosing
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a font that suits you. For me, the following objectives
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are interesting: Is the font usable for ...
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* small screens
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* presentations
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* my eyes
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The last point is probably mostly subjective, a font
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must "look good" to me.
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## Font list
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And here's the actual font table:
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[[!table data="""
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Font name | Size | Recommended | Remarks
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5x7 | tiny | no | Unreadable
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nexus | tiny | no | Digiclock style font, but hard to read
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shine | tiny | no | Similar to nexus, bit better
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outcast | tiny | no | Similar to shine, bit better
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edges | tiny | no | Similar to nexus, more edges
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suxus | tiny | no | Unreadable
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tixus | tiny | yes | Very well readable for such a small font
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smallcaps | small | no | filenames as caps on unix?
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smooth | small | undecided | Good overall, but "M" looks weired and font feels stretched
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artsie | small | yes | Well readable
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-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | tiny-small | yes | Well readable
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smoothansi | small | undecided | Good overall, but "M" looks weired and font feels stretched
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xft:DejaVu Sans Mono:pixelsize=10 | small | yes | Well readable
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kates | small-medium | no | Very fancy (impressive?), but partly hard to read
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bigcaps | small-medium | no | Hurts my eyes
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xft:Liberation Mono:style=Regular | small-medium | yes | Well readable
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a14 | medium | yes | Well readable
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xft:Inconsolata:style=Medium | medium | yes | Well readable
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-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | medium | yes | Well readable
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lucidasans-10 | medium | no | Way too much whitespace
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xft:Droid Sans:style=Regular | medium | no | Too much whitespace, not instantly good readable
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MonteCarlo:style=Sans Bold | medium | no | Not Bold, nor incredible easy to read
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lucidasanstypewriter-10 | medium | yes | Very well readable
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10x20 | medium | no | Mostly good readable, looks a bit disarranged
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xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:style=Bold | medium | yes | Very well readable
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xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:style=Roman | medium | yes | Very well readable
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variable | medium-large | no | Unreadable
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12x24 | large | undecided | Well readable, strange style, good size
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xft:Bitstream Vera Serif:style=Roman | large | | Too much whitespace
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xft:DejaVu Sans,DejaVu Sans Condensed:style=Condensed Bold,Bold| large | | Too much whitespace
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-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-32-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | large | yes |
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lucidasanstypewriter-24 | extra large | yes | Even blind can read it
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"""]]
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## See also
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* [Optimal Use of Fonts on Linux](http://avi.alkalay.net/linux/docs/font-howto/Font.html)
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* [Nice fonts for X terminals](http://adamspiers.org/computing/zsh/files/prompts/X_fonts.README)
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* [Terminus font](http://fractal.csie.org/~eric/wiki/Terminus_font)
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* [Vico's little Linux site/fonts](http://vico.kleinplanet.de/fonts.html)
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* [suxus font](http://oldhome.schmorp.de/marc/suxus.html)
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* [Archlinux Terminal Emulator font discussion](https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=283004)
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* [MonteCarlo](http://www.bok.net/MonteCarlo/)
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[[!tag unix]]
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