KDE Font ‘Oxygen’ Available for Testing

By , Published January 6, 2012

An early alpha release of the new KDE font family is available for testing.

‘Oxygen‘, designed by prolific font-maker Vernon Adams, aims to provide a ‘clear, legible, sans serif, [that's] rendered with [The Freetype Font Engine] on Linux-based devices.’

The alpha release contains three weights – regular, bold and monospace. But only support for ‘basic characters’ is currently provided.

As with anything of alpha-quality it’s best to lower your expectations. That said, if you’re still keen to use the font – warts and all – you can do so by downloading it from the link below.

Be sure to let us know your opinion on it in the comments.

Oxygen font Testing


Related posts:

  1. Meet ‘Oxygen’ – A Font for the KDE Desktop
  2. Alpha Release of Linux Spirit Font Available For Download
  3. Oxygen theme for Google Chrome
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  • Ivan Kashtanov

    Letters “и” and “я” in “Россия” are smaller than the others.

  • http://twitter.com/zzecool zzecool

    Design is the future , KDE  is left far behind  when in 2012 still looks like windows 3.11 .

    Its nice to see that they start thinking in a new way.

    • Joel Pickett

      Are you sure you’re using KDE 4.7?

      • Anonymous

        I respect KDE, but Unity or Gnome 3 is far ahead.

        • Anonymous

          Please provide any arguments other than a biased opinion based on having taken a short, incomplete look at a screenshot.

          The KDE desktop can be shaped into virtually any configuration desirable using flexible panels and widgets. The latter can be added to both panels and the desktop, and more from the community can be installed.

          Besides, the folks at KDE are busy developing interfaces for mobile platforms as well.

          KDE obviously does not appeal everybody, but it sure is respected and appreciated by those who are. In such a way, there is no need for competition between desktop environments.

          • Igor Rakocevic

             Everyone has their own choice of Desktop Environments , it all depends on what you like. I myself prefer LXDE and Gnome Shell over the others. its all choice

          • Anonymous

            Which is what I stated as well in the last paragraph.

          • floopy1962

            i was using Gnome and xfce about 4 years and when i tryed kde 4 i never returned to gnome :D Just give it a try… i was thinking that kde is dublicating windows BUT its not. KDE IS THE GREATEST GRAPHICAL ENVIRONMENT !!!

          • http://profiles.google.com/mpnordland Micah Nordland

            Friendly competition, is fine, though, it helps improvement happen

        • Glennz NL

          True. KDE is FAR too complicated with settings just everywhere. 

        • floopy1962

          u crazy… gnome is at least 5 years behind Kde hahaha 

        • Anonymous

          Yeah, Unity and Gnome don’t even work on most systems, KDE still does! They’re far ahead!

        • Arkadiusz Zembek

          Gnome-shell meaby, but Unity ???

    • Anonymous

      That’s utter nonsense and can be invalidated by just having a glimpse at kde.org.

      • http://twitter.com/Zta77 Stephan Henningsen

        I’m looking.  I only see text and icons.  I’m sorry, but your glimpse-link is nonsense.

        • Anonymous

          Let me help you along. http://kde.org/workspaces/plasmadesktop/ 

          • Igor Rakocevic

             he might be saying that due to the fact of its gray look, im not a fan of KDE but by looks and functionality is superior to that of windows 3.11

          • Anonymous

            If he knew what he was talking about, he’d know better: http://www.appletips.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/windows311-screenshot.png

            I would call this white ;)

          • http://twitter.com/Zta77 Stephan Henningsen

            That’s the glimpse-link you owed me.  Thanks ;)

    • Jason Scurtu

      What version of Windows 3.11 where you using?
      http://toastytech.com/guis/win311.html 

      • http://twitter.com/alejandronova Ernesto Manríquez
      • http://twitter.com/alejandronova Ernesto Manríquez

        http://toastytech.com/guis/cpdesk.html

        “The Central Point Desktop is an alternate desktop shell for Windows 3.1 included with PC Tools For Windows Version 2.0. It starts up with Windows instead of the Program Manager, completely replacing its functionality while adding many features that Microsoft would not add to Windows until much later (and some features that are still not present).”

        That has:

        - Virtual desktops, “MultiDesks”, in Central Point jargon.
        - Taskbar, Desktop bar.
        - Desktop icons.
        - INFINITE customizability (for the time). That includes kilometric menus, a la KDE 3.5.
        - Long file names.
        - A new File | Open and File | Save dialog with added file management capabilities.

    • http://www.swook.net/ Seon-Wook Park

      It’s easy to expose ignorance on the web.

    • Chad Germann

      have you ever even used windows 3.1?

    • Jean-Philippe Green

      Successful troll is successful

    • Zombie Kitten

      I think KDE is awesome, and looks beautiful. I just wish it was as nice to use as Gnome 3, which I’m using now. I love how in Gnome the window switcher appears instantly when you move the mouse to the corner. In KDE, it happens after a delay. Dynamic workspaces are also awesome, and how there’s a single screen used to launch new apps, manage windows on the current workspace, as well as manage workspaces and move windows between them. KDE doesn’t seem to have that, the whole interface is much more fragmented than in Gnome. And Gnome seems to have much smoother animations than KDE, on the same computer with the same video driver. So, I think that in many ways KDE is behind, but when it comes to appearance, KDE is absolutely beautiful.  :)

    • Anonymous

      “KDE  is left far behind  when in 2012 still looks like windows 3.11 .”
      Orca is a wonderful tool for the visually challenged (blind) users. 

  • Anonymous

    Kool.

  • Haa haaah

    oxygen font more like Roboto, but more short

    • http://fitoschidoblog.wordpress.com/ Fitoschido

       ¿?

  • Bobby Adesuyan

    One thing I love about kde is how the central theme of their UX is built around Oxygen, from plasma, window management, icons, wallpaper, and Qt/GTK style themes Oxygen runs all through and aims to provide a visually consistent look across KDE. Now the missing element has been added in form of fonts. This is while of all of kde lxde, gnome (2 and 3) and xfce I always find kde to be the most visually consistent desktop environment on linux. and the only one where I never bother about changing my window manager or desktop theme. Everything just works and looks whole (the only other OS I have experienced similar level of UI consistency is the Mac) 

    • Kushal Sharma

      I would agree with most of that, but I still find the KDE interface a little lacking in finesse — of course, that’s just my opinion. My reasons for that are that I find the KDE interface a little too cluttered. E.g., dolphin with that giant preview pane to the right and the colored toolbar icons, and that blue halo (shadow) around windows… then the buttons appear too thin (the underline on the text on those buttons appears very close to the button border — it appears not very polished to me). Just little things that annoy me here and there (some of which I haven’t figured out how to change without changing the whole theme, such as the height of the buttons).  Which frustrates me all the more, because I absolutely love the translucency and other stuff of the plasma desktop environment, and I love the Oxygen theme overall. I think their widgets are beautifully designed and there’s SO much promise on that system; it is nearly perfect, just not quite there!

      Elementary, on the other hand seems to be starting with some great visual consistency. Of course, at this point, Ubuntu is what I love the most. The monochrome icons in the panel, the minimalistic design of nautilus, the default themes. I’m just sold on this system (despite its bugs and other technical issues).

      Anyway, the beauty of the Linux world is that it keeps improving upon itself perpetually, so it doesn’t matter whether something is apparently perfect or otherwise — it is bound to get even better going forward.

  • Anonymous

    Downloading… AWESOME!

  • http://twitter.com/rafaelpradella Rafael Pradella

       My only problem with KDE new versions is that it was coming too glassy for my taste,  sometimes getting bad to reading.
       But I love QT programs, with their polish interface even when you´re on gnome environment.

    • Georgi Karavasilev

      Err, defaults can be changed. And that’s very easy in KDE :)

  • Anonymous

    Apart from the “L” in the monospace font, that actually looks really nice. Kudos to the KDE team for once :P

  • floopy1962

    Kde got settings for every little detail in your desktop… every icon, every toolbar, every window… kwin is the best window manager ever… kwin got window tabbing grouping and etc gtk apps look the same as qt apps in kde so averyone can use gtk apps without ruin their desktop. kde has gl effects for better pc’s and render option to reduse your memory… my opinion KDE IS THE BEST!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VFQXFZ5X3FGCPG67YW46RTPTSM V

    Ugly…. as the rest ok KDE :/

  • Anonymous

    It’s success will largely depend on how it looks in small sizes, this where many free fonts suffer. The Ubuntu font is great in small sizes and has the smoothness of fonts on a Mac.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VFQXFZ5X3FGCPG67YW46RTPTSM V

      I agree. Ubuntu font looks great and is the best UI font nowadays, much better than Windows and Mac UI fonts.

    • Freddi

      The Ubuntu font has good hinting and does not look blurry like a Mac.

  • Andrew Winnenberg

    The lowercase ‘d’ in Oxygen Regular is a little thick. The capital ‘O’ in Oxygen Mono looks a little too much like a zero to my eye.

    Despite that I deem it usable. Very nice.

  • Anonymous

    KDE is so configurable.  It can look like unity, gnome 3, mac, openbox….anything.  Easily change splash screens, kdm, rotataing wallpapers, mutilple different desktop themes, kwin has all effects or turn off if you want, great apps….etc etc. All things that need to be “hacked on” in Gnome 3 or Unity is already there and then some in KDE.

    to say KDE is behind dumb when actually it is way ahead.

    • http://droiddev.co.cc CuriousCursor

       :( I just don’t know how to use KDE >_<

  • Anonymous

    One project one font! FOSS get pwnt.

 
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