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Short URL: http://scripts.sil.org/Gentium_linux

Gentium — GNU/Linux

Victor Gaultney and Nicolas Spalinger, 2004-03-16; 48160 reads

Download main Gentium fonts | Download Gentium Basic fonts

‘I am not sure where in the world I will end up, so I need something all inclusive. Thanks so much!’

‘Thanks for such a beautiful and mind-bogglingly useful typeface!’

Gentium on the Free Desktop

Gentium is now released under the SIL Open Font License, a free/libre and open source license designed to give freedom to end-users and to provide a platform for collaboration between font designers.

See the OFL FAQ for more details about the way you can use the freedoms granted by the license.

Please read the license carefully and do not download the fonts unless you agree to the terms of the license.

We are packaging Gentium to make it easily available on the free desktop. You can download the package directly from this website, but we have also set up a package repository to allow you to use smart package managers like synaptic: http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu. Gentium is also available (or in the process of being packaged and included) in all the major distributions.

Please contact the upstream maintainer of the various packages - Nicolas Spalinger - if you want to help package or maintain a package.

If you wish to be notified of updates or other news about Gentium, please fill out the form on the main download page.

Download

If you agree to the terms of use as indicated in the OFL, then download the fonts from the following links:

Gentium

Gentium 1.02 - Debian/Ubuntu package (GNU/Linux)
Victor Gaultney, Nicolas Spalinger, 2005-11-28
Download "ttf-gentium_1.02-4_all.deb", Debian Linux Package, 671KB [24855 downloads]

This deb package is all you need for Ubuntu (and other Debian-based distributions).

It contains fonts, license, documentation and installation/uninstallation scripts. The installation procedure is simple: go to the folder where you have downloaded the .deb package, type sudo dpkg --install ttf-gentium*, then type in your password and everything will get neatly installed.

You can check if your downloaded file is valid with the following sha1sum:

ec78dcb846a4b2104338b99407f40c79572e036b ttf-gentium_1.02-4_all.deb

Gentium 1.02 - RPM package (GNU/Linux)
Victor Gaultney, 2005-11-28
Download "fonts-sil-gentium-1.02-1sil.noarch.rpm", RPM package, 2MB [3172 downloads]

This is all you need for rpm-based Linux distributions (Fedora, Mandriva, Opensuse, etc.):

It contains fonts, licence, documentation and installation/uninstallation scripts. The installation procedure is simple: Double-click on the downloaded rpm file, type in your root password when the package manager asks for it and everything will get installed. You can also manually type: su -c "rpm -Uvh fonts-ttf-gentium*", give the root password and the package will be installed.

Here is the sha1sum:

9c8edfa5a4feb78fc9fc5d1c16b459de8bbc27b0 fonts-sil-gentium-1.02-1sil.noarch.rpm

Gentium 1.02 - tarball (GNU/Linux)
Victor Gaultney, 2005-11-28
Download "ttf-sil-gentium_1.0.2.tar.gz", gzipped tar archive, 2MB [11995 downloads]

This is the source tarball. Here is the sha1sum:

7d3d8bf2b8bd62629c027114f79406f7f4b57986 ttf-sil-gentium_1.02.tar.gz

Gentium Basic

Gentium Basic 1.1 (fonts only) - Debian/Ubuntu package (GNU/Linux)
Victor Gaultney, 2008-04-21
Download "ttf-sil-gentium-basic_1.1-1_all.deb", Debian Linux Package, 851KB [2633 downloads]

This deb package is all you need for Ubuntu (and other Debian-based distributions). It contains the fonts, license and installation/uninstallation scripts. The installation procedure is simple: downloading the package with your browser will offer to open the package with the Deb package installer (gdebi-gtk), it will show you some information about the package, then you can click on "install package", put in your password and the package will get neatly installed.

Alternatively, go to the folder where you have downloaded the .deb package, type sudo dpkg --install ttf-sil-gentium*, then type in your password and everything will get neatly installed. Note that this does not include the extended sources - only the ttfs and the relevant package descriptions. It is built from the complete tarball available below, which contains extended sources. You can also type apt-get source ttf-sil-gentium-basic and it will grab it directly from the Debian or Ubuntu archive, where the package will soon be available.

Here is the sha1sum:

4dad938969c2888f108fad55b59a157787964fee ttf-sil-gentium-basic_1.1-1_all.deb

Gentium Basic 1.1 (fonts & sources) - package diff (GNU/Linux)
Victor Gaultney, 2008-04-21
Download "ttf-sil-gentium-basic_1.1.diff.gz", gzipped file, 5KB [199 downloads]

This is a compressed diff of the debian/ folder (holding the packaging
elements). Here is the sha1sum:

9d0f9a470d4ce16b8d7e28e8f2fde4638492723b ttf-sil-gentium-basic_1.1-1.diff.gz

Gentium Basic 1.1 (fonts & sources) - tarball (GNU/Linux)
Victor Gaultney, 2008-04-21
Download "ttf-sil-gentium-basic_1.1.orig.tar.gz", gzipped tar archive, 1MB [274 downloads]

This is the source orig tarball for Debian. Here is the sha1sum:

062bb86e0e1a7aebe6b0d1c1c07b63059cc0e222 ttf-sil-gentium-basic_1.1.orig.tar.gz

Installation and configuration

The package should have done its job and put everything in the right places
(normal and alternate versions of the fonts, documentation, license,
fontlog and FAQs) but, in case you want to install the font
from the tarball, here are some instructions:

Under GNOME

launch Nautilus from a menu or desktop shortcut
type fonts: in the address bar (Ctrl-L will show the location bar if it is hidden). You can also use the System->Fonts menu entry, press Details and then Go to Font Folder to open the font folder. Or type nautilus fonts: directly from a shell.
Then simply drag and drop the fonts into your font folder

Under KDE

launch font install in your menu under Configuration-KDE/System/Font Install (you can also type kcmshell kcmfontinst directly from a shell).
Then simply use the dialog boxes to browse to your fonts and install them

You can do the same manually

copy the fonts in ~/.fonts. You will have to create the folder if it doesn't exist by typing mkdir ~/.fonts
And when you're in ~/.fonts, type fc-cache -f -v to update the fonts.cache-1 cache file

Note that OpenOffice.org version 2 now knows about system-wide fonts (using fontconfig) unlike earlier versions. There is no need to use specific
OpenOffice.org tools to install new fonts.

If you want, you can also use GNOME's System->Fonts menu entry or KDE's Configuration-KDE->System->Font to choose Gentium as your desktop font and adjust the hinting and the anti-aliasing.

You can also copy the local.conf fontconfig definition file to activate
system-wide aliasing for Gentium and make it your main serif font:

type: sudo mv /etc/fonts/local.conf local.conf.old
type: sudo cp local.conf /etc/fonts/

(Making a backup of your original configuration file is always a good idea,
you can copy back the old file if needed).
You can also add the section between the alias tags to an already existing
local.conf using your favorite text editor.

Known bugs and limitations

These are the current issues that are being investigated:

They may be linked to the way other software behaves and not be a bug with Gentium at all. Or they may just be configuration problems. Some of these bug descriptions are quite vague but we're working on tracking down the problems. A big thank you to the various people who have tested the Gentium fonts (and these packages) on their computers and reported the issues. We will keep updating this section as soon as we isolate bugs or fix them.

OpenOffice.org Calc only shows square boxes in the input line but you can edit the cell
Certain diacritics are not showing but print out fine
There are minor hinting bugs but these do not affect the quality of the printing
Printing from Kword (and kedit) leaves out some glyphs although they appear in the preview

Type Specimens

You may also wish to download type specimens that show the full complement of glyphs in Gentium and include samples of the fonts in use. These documents do not, however, give any technical assistance.

Gentium Type Specimen (A5 format)
Victor Gaultney, 2003-09-11
Download "Gentium_RU_spec.pdf", Acrobat PDF document, 800KB [41291 downloads]

Gentium Proofs (A3 format)
Victor Gaultney, 2003-09-11
Download "Gentium_RU_proofs.pdf", Acrobat PDF document, 748KB [19823 downloads]

Gentium Greek Type Specimen (A4 format)
Victor Gaultney, 2003-09-11
Download "Gentium_spec_greek.pdf", Acrobat PDF document, 213KB [20221 downloads]

Backlinks (20 most popular; affiliated sites and popular search engines removed)
http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/unicode.htm
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38659
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=125970
http://sitthy.free.fr/khmer/
http://korais.hellug.gr/
http://hugo.muensterland.org/blogmark/