Use Noto Fonts instead of Cantarell for greater unicode compatiblity and consistency
The Noto font family is currently the best free and open source font in terms of Unicode compatibility, it covers the most non-latin scripts. Noto Sans
should replace Cantarell
for both UI and Document text. A font that has support for most scripts allows for a greater range of people, speaking different languages, to use Gnome and other apps that respect font settings. Noto Sans also scales better to lower resolutions like the pinephone. While Noto Sans
has been set as a fallback font in many distros (like Fedora), the entire UI being the same font is more consistent. After changing the font in Tweaks, I have not noticed any breakage, so it should be a safe change.
If a seperate Heading
font catogry was introduced, Cantarell can still be used for headings, sub headings, and other places where Gnome's design should be visible. In these places there is a lot less text, so even if Noto Sans
ends up being used with Cantarell
there, it shouldn't be to jarring. This would keep Gnome's visual identity while still having good unicode compatibility.
After changing the font in Tweaks, I have not noticed any breakage, so it should be a safe change.