Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
Chronicler Zack Brown reports on the little links that bring us closer within the Linux kernel community.
Fonts in the Kernel
Recently, Bagas Sanjaya said, "The Linux kernel documentation is primarily composed of text (both prose and code snippets) and a few images. Hence, making the text easy to read by proper typography choices is crucial." He went on, "The problem is depending on the serif font selected by system, the docs text (especially long passages) can be hard and uncomfortable to read. For developers reading the docs on multiple devices, the appearence may look inconsistent."
To solve this, he proposed, "Uniform the font choices by leveraging web fonts. Most of people reading the kernel docs should already have modern browser that supports this feature (e.g. Chrome/Chromium and Firefox). The fonts are downloaded automatically when loading the page, but only if the reader [doesn't] already have ones installed locally. Subsequent docs page loading will use the browser cache to retrieve the fonts. If for some reasons the fonts fail to load, the browser will fall back to fallback fonts commonly seen on other sites."
Therefore, he said, in terms of which fonts to include in the kernel source tree, "we settle down on IBM Plex Sans (sans-serif), IBM Plex Mono (monospace), and Newsreader (serif). All these fonts are licensed under OFL 1.1 [SIL Open Font License] and can be distributed alongside the kernel docs."
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora Asahi Remix 41 Available for Apple Silicon
If you have an Apple Silicon Mac and you're hoping to install Fedora, you're in luck because the latest release supports the M1 and M2 chips.
-
Systemd Fixes Bug While Facing New Challenger in GNU Shepherd
The systemd developers have fixed a really nasty bug amid the release of the new GNU Shepherd init system.
-
AlmaLinux 10.0 Beta Released
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation has announced the availability of AlmaLinux 10.0 Beta ("Purple Lion") for all supported devices with significant changes.
-
Gnome 47.2 Now Available
Gnome 47.2 is now available for general use but don't expect much in the way of newness, as this is all about improvements and bug fixes.
-
Latest Cinnamon Desktop Releases with a Bold New Look
Just in time for the holidays, the developer of the Cinnamon desktop has shipped a new release to help spice up your eggnog with new features and a new look.
-
Armbian 24.11 Released with Expanded Hardware Support
If you've been waiting for Armbian to support OrangePi 5 Max and Radxa ROCK 5B+, the wait is over.
-
SUSE Renames Several Products for Better Name Recognition
SUSE has been a very powerful player in the European market, but it knows it must branch out to gain serious traction. Will a name change do the trick?
-
ESET Discovers New Linux Malware
WolfsBane is an all-in-one malware that has hit the Linux operating system and includes a dropper, a launcher, and a backdoor.
-
New Linux Kernel Patch Allows Forcing a CPU Mitigation
Even when CPU mitigations can consume precious CPU cycles, it might not be a bad idea to allow users to enable them, even if your machine isn't vulnerable.
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5 Released
Notify your friends, loved ones, and colleagues that the latest version of RHEL is available with plenty of enhancements.