Hello all,
So again with more info about the Fira fonts in the official repos.
First of all, I should probably explain why I care about this font family. Not only I already used to use Fira Code as a programming font (ligatures FTW!), I have recently decided to use FiraGO (replacing previous use of Fira Sans) as personal branding. So I am shipping Android apps with the FiraGO font and taking advantage of its extended language support for my i18n apps!
Ok, ok, so you might get it that I "have a horse in this race". So let's explain why I am sending this. For reference we might need the Fira family Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fira_(typeface)
The relevant information is that the Fira fonts were commissioned for FirefoxOS usage, at that point Sans and Mono were created.
So, the full set of Fira fonts are:
- Fira Sans (developed up to a certain point by Mozilla and then further by Carrois) - Fira Mono (developed up to a certain point by Mozilla and then further by Carrois) - Fira Math (mathematics font developed by something else) - Fira Code (Fira Mono extended with programming ligatures) - FiraGO (Fira Sans extended with more language support) - Firava (Fira Sans as a variable font)
Fira Sans and Fira Mono are currently retired and I was in the process of sending a review to get them back in the repos. However I now question if it's a worth cause.
Think about it like this, if Fira Code and FiraGo are respectively supersets os Fira Mono and Fira Sans, maybe we should just reflect that in the packaging? We could ship a fontconfig that make the system behaves as the are equivalent and change the specs so the superset font provides the older one! That is, if that is something we as font packagers are allowed to do. I am fine with having the original Sans and Mono fonts in the repos for completeness but maybe taking this other approach could save us time and effort?
Btw looking in the repos it's noticeable that Fira Math is only available for Latex usage, but not as a normal font, and that Firava is not packaged at all. I am willing to package those fonts in the near future so it can be useable for whoever is interested.
Hope we can get into an agreement, Mateus Rodrigues Costa
On 2026-05-20 10:48 a.m., "Mateus R. Costa" mateusrodcosta@gmail.com wrote:
Hello all,
So again with more info about the Fira fonts in the official repos.
First of all, I should probably explain why I care about this font family. Not only I already used to use Fira Code as a programming font (ligatures FTW!), I have recently decided to use FiraGO (replacing previous use of Fira Sans) as personal branding. So I am shipping Android apps with the FiraGO font and taking advantage of its extended language support for my i18n apps!
Ok, ok, so you might get it that I "have a horse in this race". So let's explain why I am sending this. For reference we might need the Fira family Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fira_(typeface)
The relevant information is that the Fira fonts were commissioned for FirefoxOS usage, at that point Sans and Mono were created.
So, the full set of Fira fonts are:
- Fira Sans (developed up to a certain point by Mozilla and then
further by Carrois)
- Fira Mono (developed up to a certain point by Mozilla and then
further by Carrois)
- Fira Math (mathematics font developed by something else)
- Fira Code (Fira Mono extended with programming ligatures)
- FiraGO (Fira Sans extended with more language support)
- Firava (Fira Sans as a variable font)
Fira Sans and Fira Mono are currently retired and I was in the process of sending a review to get them back in the repos. However I now question if it's a worth cause.
Fira Sans and Fira Mono are retired? That will be great if you can step up for maintenanceship.
Think about it like this, if Fira Code and FiraGo are respectively supersets os Fira Mono and Fira Sans, maybe we should just reflect that in the packaging?
Go for it.
We could ship a fontconfig that make the system behaves as the are equivalent and change the specs so the superset font provides the older one! That is, if that is something we as font packagers are allowed to do. I am fine with having the original Sans and Mono fonts in the repos for completeness but maybe taking this other approach could save us time and effort?
For the complete set, it is worth to reflect the changes
Btw looking in the repos it's noticeable that Fira Math is only available for Latex usage, but not as a normal font, and that Firava is not packaged at all. I am willing to package those fonts in the near future so it can be useable for whoever is interested.
Please do. With the Packit system, maintenance seems easier than before.
Hi,
On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 2:52 AM Mateus R. Costa mateusrodcosta@gmail.com wrote:
Think about it like this, if Fira Code and FiraGo are respectively supersets os Fira Mono and Fira Sans, maybe we should just reflect that in the packaging? We could ship a fontconfig that make the system behaves as the are equivalent and change the specs so the superset font provides the older one!
If FiraGo is font-metrics compatible with Fira Sans (and Fira Mono), you can provide it for the substitution. Otherwise, I think it's better not to do it.
That is, if that is something we as font packagers are allowed to do. I am fine with having the original Sans and Mono fonts in the repos for completeness but maybe taking this other approach could save us time and effort?
Unretiring them? If you think it is useful, you can. If you meant to have them in one place, you probably can't unless they are in the same archive. That is what the packaging guidelines define.
Btw looking in the repos it's noticeable that Fira Math is only available for Latex usage, but not as a normal font, and that Firava is not packaged at all. I am willing to package those fonts in the near future so it can be useable for whoever is interested.
Hope we can get into an agreement, Mateus Rodrigues Costa -- _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam, report it: https://forge.fedoraproject.org/infra/tickets/issues/new
I use Fira Sans for LaTeX Beamer, with the moloch or metropolis theme. I use the fira sans mono book weight for text. Unfortunately I've struggled to find a matching math font. The fira math in the current packaging only comes in 1 weight, and it doesn't match my choice of book. I believe other weights might be available? If so, it would be very helpful if they were also packaged for fedora.
Mateus R. Costa wrote:
- Fira Mono (developed up to a certain point by Mozilla and then
further by Carrois)
[...]
- Fira Code (Fira Mono extended with programming ligatures)
[...]
Fira Sans and Fira Mono are currently retired and I was in the process of sending a review to get them back in the repos. However I now question if it's a worth cause.
Think about it like this, if Fira Code and FiraGo are respectively supersets os Fira Mono and Fira Sans, maybe we should just reflect that in the packaging? We could ship a fontconfig that make the system behaves as the are equivalent and change the specs so the superset font provides the older one!
I've been using Fira Mono. Some years ago I compared all the packaged monospace fonts I could find, and found that Fira Mono was the best at distinguishing between I, l, 1, |, O, 0, Ø, ∅ and others. I'm not a fan of the lorgnette-like g, but it's certainly not ambiguous so it's not a big problem.
Having played around a bit with Fira Code, I find it unsuitable as a general-purpose replacement for Fira Mono. The Ø-like zero is a big drawback to me, and even more so to Danes and Norwegians I expect. The dotted zero is an option that's available only in certain programs that provide that feature.
I'm not sure what to think about the programming ligatures. Is it really a good idea to display source code as other characters than it actually is? Maybe I could get used to it, but it would require an editor where the selection of ligatures can be configured separately for each programming language. Some ligatures designed for one language are totally wrong for another language.
When I tried Fira Code in a terminal window, the programming ligatures took effect there too. That's definitely unwanted. The terminal emulator doesn't know which language some program outputs, and has no option for turning off the ligatures.
My conclusion is that Fira Code is only for use in certain advanced code editors, not for monospace text in general. Using it to provide Fira Mono is acceptable only if it's done in such a way that the ligatures are disabled and the zero is restored simply by selecting "Fira Mono" in a drop-down menu. Is that possible to do in a fontconfig?
If you decide to bring back Fira Mono, I'll use it. Otherwise I'll make do with another general-purpose monospace font. For example Liberation Mono is also pretty good at disambiguation.
Björn Persson
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Akira TAGOH -
Björn Persson -
luya＠fedoraproject.org -
Mateus R. Costa -
Neal Becker