As a part of larger (personal) project to introduce Linux in my daily working environment, I dabbled around with Ubuntu & Fedora Core 6 dual booting with Windows XP. I burnt my fingers badly while trying to dual boot my computer with Windows XP and Ubuntu, but that is another story.

Finally I did manage to get Ubuntu 7.04 and Windows XP running together happily. The next task at hand was to customise Linux so that I get (almost) the same Windows-like look and feel. This task included:

1. Changing the background colour to match Windows Desktop (Easy)
   
2. Changing the desktop wall paper (Easy)
3. Having a similar theme for look and feel (Moderate)
4. Using the same preferred fonts (Easy on Fedora, Hard on Ubuntu)

Problem:

Actually customising the fonts should not be very difficult. But in Ubuntu it turned out to be very difficult (at least in the beginning). To open the fonts folder on Linux you can enter

fonts:///

in the File Browser location bar (similar to address bar in Windows Explorer). The location bar can be activated by either clicking on the small icon next to the folder list or by clicking on Go --> Location. In Fedora this open a hidden folder called .fonts that is in the users home folder. This folder contains all the user specific fonts in Fedora. When I tried to browse to this location in Ubuntu, it took me to the system fonts folder where a non-root user write anything. I even tried opening the location by sudo-ing. Any changes that I made to that folder would not reflect in my profile. I searched a lot on the internet for a solution for this problem and was scared by the results and suggestion.

Solution:

I thought I would check the fonts configuration file /etc/fonts.conf and see if I find anything. I checked the Fonts Directory List section and saw the familiar .fonts location.

<!-- Font directory list -->
        <dir>/usr/share/fonts</dir>
        <dir>/usr/share/X11/fonts</dir> <dir>/usr/local/share/fonts</dir>
        <dir>~/.fonts</dir>

But when I looked again for the .fonts folder in my home folder, I couldn't find it. Then I thought I would TRY creating that folder myself. It seemed like a long shot, but since I was running out of ideas, I was ready for anything. I created that folder and copied the TrueType font files from Windows in there. Next when I tried to customize the fonts, I was so very happy to see those fonts in the available list. Now my look and feel is like Windows, but I am using Ubuntu 7.04.