GNOME 48 uses a new default UI and monospace font, though this typographic turnabout won’t impact Ubuntu users directly.
If you feel a sense of deja vu it’s because GNOME tested a font switch before, during development of GNOME 47. Then, it replaced its home-grown Cantarell font with popular open-source sans Inter (trivia: Inter is used in Zorin OS).
But change was reverted before the GNOME 47 release. Various bugs, coverage and compatibility issues were uncovered during the testing period (underlining the importance of why testing things before making them default is wise).
Issues fixed, GNOME 48 is set to ship with a new font.
GNOME 48 replaces Cantarell with a modified version of Inter that’s been named Adwaita Sans.
It’s also adding a new monospace font called Adwaita Mono to replace Source Code Pro. Adwaita Mono is a modified version of Iosevka that it has ‘customised to match Inter’.
An interesting but not impactful change for Ubuntu users. Ubuntu 25.04, out in April, will include GNOME 48 but it will, as it has been since 2017, come customised with Ubuntu’s branding, patches, and various preinstalled GNOME Shell extensions.
But just because Ubuntu doesn’t follow upstream GNOME’s font choices doesn’t mean you can’t.
GNOME’s new Adwaita fonts may be packaged in the plucky archives so anyone keen to swap the Ubuntu font for Adwaita Sans and/or Ubuntu Mono for Adwaita Mono may be able to.
Let me know what you think of the new GNOME font choices and how they compare to Cantarell by leaving a comment!