Here’s an open thread, as I install the Microsoft Truetype “core” fonts in Ubuntu and Fedora 8.

This is the font package that’s on nearly every Mac and PC, including Verdana, Arial, and Georgia — fonts that are used on 90%+ of the web pages in existence, but don’t come installed by default on Linux. And LGF looks much better with Verdana and Trebuchet MS installed.

In Ubuntu, it’s very simple to install these fonts with the apt-get utility. Just open a Terminal window and type:

$ sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Then log out and back in, or restart.

In Fedora 8, you need to install the ‘chkfontpath’ package first; here’s the procedure that worked for me:

$ su (enter superuser password)
$ yum -y install chkfontpath
$ rpm -Uvh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm
$ exit (get out of superuser mode)

Again you’ll need to log out and log in to see the fonts.

UPDATE at 5/8/08 11:32:25 am:

If you’re a newbie to the command line interface, don’t type the dollar signs in the examples above — they’re the default shell prompts you see when entering commands, and that’s the usual way of showing CLI examples.

UPDATE at 5/8/08 3:11:01 pm:

LGF reader addison posted an alternate method for installing the fonts in Fedora 8, if the above doesn’t work:

$ wget http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
$ yum install rpm-build cabextract
$ rpmbuild -ba msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
$ yum localinstall —nogpgcheck /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm