Whenever I consider Linux, I notice the shitty fonts and wonder what are its other glaring omissions. Probably an ignorant thought, but I can’t be alone.
Especially in the past, but even also today, most Linux distributions have indeed installed by default shitty free fonts, which were the main reason why the GUI of a default Linux installation looked much uglier than that of a default Windows installation or of a default Mac OS installation.
Nevertheless, the default fonts can be deleted and replaced with nice fonts, which can make any Linux look better than Windows or Mac OS.
I have been using for the last 20 years only Linux on all my desktops and laptops, but since the very beginning I have never used the default Linux fonts, but I have always replaced them immediately with beautiful fonts.
When I have started using Linux, it was much more difficult than today to find good free fonts, so I have bought many good typefaces from companies like Linotype, which no longer exists, because as mentioned in this article it has been bought by Monotype, or from Adobe, which appears to be the last big commercial vendor of typefaces which has not been bought yet by Monotype.
Nowadays, it is much easier to find good free fonts. Especially for programming and CLI windows there are a lot of very good free fonts from which to choose.
For proportional typefaces, it can be a little more difficult to find good free fonts, though there is always the solution to grab some fonts from Windows or Mac OS. I have stopped using Mac OS more than a decade ago, but I have still kept from it a Japanese typeface that I have liked and then I have continued to use on Linux, while from my last Windows I have kept Palatino Linotype for polytonic Greek.
So if some people use shitty fonts on Linux, that is their fault, not of Linux, because it cannot be expected for a free product to include good licensed typefaces, like those whose price is included in that of a Windows license or Mac OS license.
The Ubuntu font for example is definitely not shitty -- it was designed at Dalton Maag and it is a considered piece of work that a lot of typographers rather like.
It's definitely rather idiosyncratic, mind you.
So I don't personally use it on Linux. I use Google's Roboto, which is close enough to Apple's later San Francisco (which shares some common heritage and some common modern touches) that I don't go insane when switching between the two!
Roboto is again a considered bit of work by a highly competent designer.
I don't have problems with either. If I did, I could use the Fira suite, which is lovely.
Personally, my use of fonts are more utilitarian. In that context, the fonts shipped with a typical Linux distribution are perfectly usable and far from shitty. While I would expect someone who has more of an eye for design to have more discerning tastes, I would be surprised if many people shared an opinion as extreme as yours or mine. (I suspect that they would be more inclined to notice the quality of font rendering or missing favorite fonts than anything else.)
my experience migrating from win98/2k to linux was totally the opposite.
linux distros were some of the first to use proper LCD hinting and anti-aliasing on the fonts, so they always looked buttery smooth and polished when compared to the Microsoft offering at the time.
