Ubuntu installs over 200 fonts, the majority of them foreign-language fonts that only the most gifted linguist would ever be able to use. They're useless anyway since most of them don't render correctly. Those odd-looking ae_ fonts that have so many Ubuntu users scratching their heads? Those are all part of the ttf-arabeyes package. A quick way to find out which package a font belongs to is using the locate command to search on the font name:

$ locate -i ae_cortoba
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-arabeyes/ae_Cortoba.ttf

Go into Adept or Synaptic, search for installed fonts, and you'll see at a glance which ones are relevant to you. Do not remove:

• Any xfonts or xfont utilities
• x-tccidfont-conf
• ttf-opensymbol
• ttf-dejavu
• anything that starts with lib
• fontconfig
• defoma
• anything that starts with console
• gsfonts

Come back next week to learn how to get detailed information on fonts, finding and installing interesting new fonts, and how to create your own.

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