Ubuntu fonts: ‘Ubuntu’ and ‘Ubuntu Sans’

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1

As I’m interested in typography, I have a quick question about the different Ubuntu font families.
There are currently 2 font families: ‘Ubuntu’ and ‘Ubuntu Sans’.
These 2 font families are almost identical, with only subtle differences.
When I look at the information in gnome-font-viewer, I can see that ‘Ubuntu Sans’ is a more recent version, with more styles (ExtraLight, for example).
Why this choice to make these 2 font families cohabit by default?
In my humble opinion, it’s a bit confusing.

2

(I’m just a user/observer:) Ubuntu Sans is the newer update, as you say, and default on recent Ubuntu versions. The biggest update to me is that it is thinner, which looked funny to me at first but once I got used to it I prefer it. It is a much more similar weight to other fonts and makes reading text easier IMO. The monospaced font also has better sizing: the old version was much smaller at any point size than other fonts.

Since the changes are pretty major, “Ubuntu” was kept as the name of the previous version for people who prefer to carry on using that and “Ubuntu Sans” added for the new version. I think I remember at first the new version was named just Ubuntu as well but that made it much more complicated to determine which version is which for people who want to use both or keep the old one.

3

I was thinking the reason would be some apps or toolkits expect an “Ubuntu” font to be present if they have not been built to use “Ubuntu Sans” (yet).

Also “Ubuntu” is not the oldest font, it seems to be the middle child. The oldest one from Jammy is now in the fonts-ubuntu-classic package which replaces fonts-ubuntu if installed.

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4

Thank you for taking the time to reply.
In conclusion, I’m going to keep both fonts installed and ‘Ubuntu Sans’ will be my default font choice.
I’ve got used to this font for on-screen reading. I also like to send pdf documents with the Ubuntu font embedded to people who use another operating system. Modest attempt to promote the Ubuntu system, but that will certainly be the subject of another topic.