[mythtv-theming] What fonts are guaranteed to be on a Linux box?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 08/21/2013 01:20 PM, Thomas Mashos wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Yeechang Lee  wrote:
>> I am part of the Mythbuntu theme team and am planning to provide a
>> osd_subtitle.xml in the 0.27 version or earlier to fix some font
>> issues that exist with the fallback default vesion. Since the theme
>> does not ship with any fonts I'd like it to be work "out of the box"
>> as much as possible.
>>
>> Given the theme's origin and heavy reliance elsewhere I can assume
>> that the Ubuntu fonts will be available (although I had to install
>> them on my Linux and Mac frontends given that I don't use
>> Ubuntu/Mythbuntu myself). What other fonts, however, can I rely on to
>> be available on a reasonably modern MythTV box? Do distributions ship
>> with Liberation? Bitstream? DejaVu? Droid? Or is the simplest thing to
>> have the theme ship with some free fonts?

That's definitely the safest approach--it ensures it will work on any 
system, regardless of installed fonts.

To distribute the font, just put a *.ttf, *.otf, or *.ttc anywhere 
within the theme directory structure.  See 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/commits/424598#424598 for more.

> I'd like to keep the Ubuntu font as the main font being used, I think
> it looks great but I'm open to other suggestions as well. If that
> doesn't exist on the box, I believe the theme falls back to something
> like dejavu or something like that.

Is it possible (licensing wise, etc.) to ship the Ubuntu font with the 
Mythbuntu theme?  If so, that would ensure it works properly on all 
systems without the problems caused by font substitution (where 
different fonts take different amounts of space, so some text gets cut 
off for some people depending on what font they got).

Mike