Fudgy McFarlen

Installing Roboto Font on Ubuntu Linux

 

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To install the Roboto font for use in GIMP on Linux, you need to install it on your system and then ensure GIMP recognizes the newly installed font. 

Step 1: Download the Roboto Font

  1. Go to the Google Fonts Roboto page.
  2. Click the Download family button, usually found in the top-right corner.
  3. The font files will download as a ZIP archive (e.g., roboto.zip).
  4. Navigate to your Downloads folder and extract the ZIP file's contents to a new folder (e.g., Roboto). The extracted folder will contain several font files, typically with a .ttf or .otf extension. 

Step 2: Install the Font on Linux System 

You have two main options to install the font system-wide or for a single user. Installing it system-wide makes it available to all applications, including GIMP. 

For a single user (recommended):

  1. Open your file manager (e.g., Nautilus, Thunar) and navigate to your Home folder.
  2. Enable viewing hidden files by pressing Ctrl + H or selecting "Show Hidden Files" from the view menu.
  3. Look for a folder named .fonts. If it doesn't exist, create it.
  4. Copy the extracted font files (.ttf or .otf) into the ~/.fonts/ directory.

Using a Font Manager application:

  1. In most modern Linux distributions (like Ubuntu/GNOME), you can simply double-click a font file (.ttf or .otf) to open it in the Font Viewer application.
  2. Click the Install button within the font viewer to install it to your system.

Step 3: Refresh Fonts in GIMP 

After installing the font on your system:

  1. If GIMP was running during the installation, you need to restart GIMP for the font to appear in the font list.
  2. Alternatively, within GIMP, you can open the Fonts dialog (Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Fonts or Edit > Preferences > Folders > Fonts) and click the Refresh button (usually a small refresh icon). 

The Roboto font should now be available in GIMP's text tool options. 

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Intelligence Reports to the Venetian Senate

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Venice had a network of spies and diplomats in every court of Europe. Upon their return, they were required to deliver reports to the Venetian Senate. These reports were so invaluable for understanding the state of the world that they were often smuggled out and sold to rich clients for a high price. 

Many survive to this day, and they have been compiled into historical volumes that make for extremely interesting reading, and are some of the most important sources for the history of the 1500s and 1600s. But most have never been translated into English. 

AI is finally getting good enough to translate old documents like this (not as good as an expert, but good enough when nothing else is available), so I wrote a short program to translate the Venetian reports. The results are surprisingly good. With some light editing and the addition of footnotes, they make for really compelling reading.

So I'm making a Substack and putting the earliest surviving report on the Ottoman Empire (from 1534) up as the first post. I'll keep any AI-translated stuff completely free, as it would feel wrong to paywall that, but if you'd like to support me by subscribing, I'll be posting some of my own historical/political/cultural thoughts behind the paywall eventually.

Anyway check it out, I think you'll really enjoy reading these reports. The first one covers (among other things) the scheming of Grand Vizier Ibrahim, and the Venetian diplomat's correspondence with the famous corsair Barbarossa:

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Life and Works of Flavius Josephus

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By Fudgy McFarlen, ago