Review font selection

[clefebvre]

Here's a quick comparison of fonts in Elementary, Ubuntu and Linux Mint:

The elementary fonts come from fonts-open-sans and fonts-roboto. The Ubuntu fonts come from fonts-ubuntu, and the Linux Mint fonts come from fonts-noto-hinted.

The suggestion is to:

• Switch to the Ubuntu font
• Remove fonts-noto, fonts-noto-hinted and fonts-noto-unhinted (they create stuttering in Chromium)
• Test compatibility with Asian languages and QT apps
• Review font sizes
• Review mono font selection
• Switch Cinnamon theme to Ubuntu fonts

Comparison of the different fonts

This is done by applying the fonts on top of Mint 19.1.

Here's the default look, with Noto Sans:

OpenSans

Here we're using Open Sans (same size, same mono font as before, just switched Noto Sans to Mono Sans):

The result largely looks the same and isn't as good as the original. Except for a stylized G which arguably looks better, "i" aren't as readable, and there are some spacing issues here and there.

DejaVu Sans

This is the exact same font as Noto Sans but it looks slightly larger. The titlebars look a little bit big, but we can reduce the size.

There are tiny differences in the legibility. The 9 in mintupdate's bind9 update seems to be a little easier to read.

Ubuntu

Switching to Ubuntu we get a slight improvement overall. Spacing is improved and the font is a little easier to read. It also has that friendly feeling to it.

Here's an in-depth look at the differences:
http://www.identifont.com/differences?first=noto+sans&second=ubuntu&q=Go

Ubuntu also has something else going for it, it's likely to be set up and patched/configured/postinst-glued properly in Ubuntu and so also in Mint. This gives it an advantage over similar or even better / more popular fonts used on the web or outside the Linux community.

Comparison of the different Mono fonts

Our Mono font works quite well already: Monospace Regular 10.

In comparison, Ubuntu Mono 12 (which gives us the same size), is harder to read and a little too fancy:

[clefebvre]

The font was switched to Ubuntu.

[sailfishdev]

Thanks for switching to Ubuntu fonts 💃