What is the best font for programming in a Linux Desktop?

Question

So my requirements are:

• Easily accessible from a Linux distro (no paid fonts)
• Compact representation of the font (Allow maximum screen space available)
• Readable in high resolution monitors
• No lock-in to a specific software (it must run on Vim, Emacs, ...)
• Aesthetically beautiful
• Geek flavour ;)

Which are your suggestions?

Solution 1

Monospace. It's badass, and fixed width.

Solution 2

Inconsolata font by Raph Levien is quite good.

You can download it here

Solution 3

Inconsolata happens to be my favourite. It's free, it's great and it's generally available in the package repositories of most Linux distros.

Solution 4

This is a tough one and comes down to preference, from Lucida Console to Proggy fonts... http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts/ displays some of them.

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Comments

[Denis de Bernardy]

Comic Sans or Papyrus! :-)

[exebook]

My system (Mint) happens to have this font installed, programs can see it. But I cannot find the font file to embed into my program. Do you know how to find it? There is not "Monospace" anywhere in /usr/share/fonts