Nerd Fonts: How and Why You Should Use Them

Nerd Fonts are simply patched fonts that contain images from a range of iconic fonts such as Font Awesome. They are easy to use and install, they save you the trouble of having to install multiple iconic fonts, and there are a large range of pre-patched fonts available. If you wish, you can even patch your favourite font with the icons you want to use.

There really isn't anything complicated about Nerd fonts, and if you use a window manager you will probably already have heard of them, but perhaps you've only used Font Awesome so far. If so, give these a try and see what you think.

Personally, I've switched completely from Font Awesome now because Nerd fonts do I everything I need from an iconic font set - e.g. multiple icons and powerline symbols all in one place.

I hope you enjoy the video :-)

If you enjoy my channel and/or find it useful, you can support me in a number of ways.

1. If you would like to become a Patron, my page is here:

2. If you would like to order OTB merchandise, I now have a Spreadshirt shop and a Teespring shop:

3. if you want to buy me a beer, I've now launched my new website and you'll find a PayPal button for that very purpose:

If you chose any of the above options you will be helping to keep the channel going and I am extremely grateful.

You can also join me on the following:

To join LBRY please click the link below. As a disclaimer, I will earn LBRY points if you use the link so thanks for the support

To join the OldTechBloke Facebook group click here:

To join the OldTechBloke subreddit click here:

To view my GitLab repo:

Ramble On!

[kevinklement]

On Arch, I think it's best just to install `ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols` and use it as a fallback, rather than use patched versions of the fonts themselves. The patching process quite often ruins the font, regarding things like advanced otf features, kerning rules, and so on. I use Fira Code, and the nerd font version doesn't have all the nice features the regular version does. The kitty terminal documentation has a nice explanation for why you shouldn't use patched fonts.

[Danielddiniz]

My face as One of my best Linux Channels dropping a Video for my enjoyment: 😀
Steve, I loved the Bike 🏍 warm up at the start! You rock my friend 🥇

[HelmutFischer-thehefi]

Great start of video! You should change your intro to the Royal Enfield appearance!

[donaldmickunas]

Hey OTB,

I always enjoy your tutorial videos. This one is no exception. Thanks for all your hard work. Take care. 🙂

[hexearth]

Been riding motorcycles for more than 10 years, and I most enjoy it on the Winter. Rarely drive during the summer. And RE has some great bikes now like the Himalayan, my RE favorite. And well, time for a little maintenance on the fonts on my machine... I have too much Noto fonts... they are done today.

[taidee]

Thanks OTB, I've long downloaded the complete collection from AUR, it makes life easy for me, so that I don't ever see that failure to render issue, it used to happen a lot. Nice intro there with the bike, thank you 😎

[JonathanSteadman]

I really like your motorbike. Very nice. :)

[NOPerative]

NERDS!
LOL
Awesome!
Okay, I'm done now.
Good vid - again!

[RobBoudreau]

Bike sounds great Steve, makes me jealous. It'll be another month or more yet before riding weather here. I do hope the weather warms more for you soon, I know how strong the itch to ride is. 😉
Looks like you were using i3. Was using Sway myself for about a week, but some software I use still has trouble with Wayland, so back to bspwm for now. Sway was solid, no problems with it, kinda like it, but I need my software to work properly.

Some people say they have problems with the patched Nerd fonts, never had myself. Been using them for years without issue. Great video as always, cheers!

[marioschroers]

Recently installed Nerd Fonts on my laptop. Reason why? On my PC, powerlevel10k displays folder icons nicely, while my laptop does not. Will have to rerun the config wizard at some point.

Btw, very nice bike, sir. 😎

Update: I use JetBrains Mono as my terminal font in st. So I installed a Nerd Font version of JetBrains Mono, and yet icons didn't render as expected, and the joining line on a two-line prompt was slashed.

Installing the nerd-font-complete package fixed this issue. My prompt now renders as nicely on my laptop as it does on my computer. However, nerd-font-complete is a huge package. Using fc-list | grep "font-name", you get a list of all installed variants of your terminal font to narrow down the choices. I guess I will backup these fonts locally or on my Gitlab and try to write a quick install script for my upcoming distro switch or reinstall.

Update 2: Don't know with other terminals, but in st, I have "Jetbrains Mono" configured as my terminal font, *not* the Nerd Font version. Don't know if that will make any difference, but in case you run into issues with Nerd Fonts, see if they work with just the regular font name.

[YrmiZ]

Some of the nerd fonts looks completely different than their original versions. For example: FiraMono and JetBrains Mono.

[codychan]

May I ask, what is the font manager you are using? 03:00

[tdevkw]

My only issue with Nerd Font is that their Font Awesome version is very outdated

[zen-ventzi-marinov]

Where can we find the difference between the fonts on the download page, except for looks? I.e. do they all include all the icons with just difference in the looks or do they include different icons/packages of icons?

[samsungsarsamsungsar]

Hi. Please introduce some application for learning and practicing English on Linux.

[Bigdog]

I have a custom desktop look I made my self I don't use any standard font it's a military theme desktop so I found a military font that I been using for it.🥰 Maybe one day I'll release the theme I just have not till I release my custom computer case that I designed it around. There also nothing like it I look other ideas from other rainmeter people and heavy modified it. Like someone has a drop down menu for a desktop I extracted that out from everything else and designed a folder viewer out of it so you can assign it to a folder and anything you put inside it auto shows up icons and all.🤭 That alone is so unique you won't find it on any other rainmeter theme.

[encapsulatio]

Would you please be willing to show in depth and "explain like I'm 6 years old" how to install tar files and all types of archive binaries that you can install?
There are not very good videos on youtube on how to do that from beginning to end and people usually do now explain why the syntax is as it is, they just list syntax without any context.
Thank you!

[BrucesWorldofStuff]

Awesome way to start a video! Voom Voom! :-)
Hahaha, I downloaded the whole Nerd Font 2+gigs... :-)
I put all my fonts in ~/.fonts so when I reinstall there already found by the OS (Arch, MX, etc) and reinstalling not needed... I use Nerd fonts totally nowaday.
Thanks for the video OTB Cheers!

LLAP

You need a shot of you rising off on the bike as a ending for the video with a big Arch "A" on the back of your jacket... :-P
Just saying... LOL

[frclayton]

Muito bom! o Vicious é um tanto estranho. Gostaria de ver, se possível, o widget p/ weather (previsão do tempo). Abração!

[entrepreneurialhacks]

how can I set up a Nerd Fonts on Ubuntu I wanna use it for starship.