Which font is the default "sans-serif" font in Linux? When I go in Windows to Options, Font, Advanced I can see that the default sans-serif font is Arial, but in Linux it only shows "sans-serif" as a font by itself.
Any idea how can I check which "sans-serif" font is this?
"sans-serif" is the name of a font on Linux as well.
Some pictures show how it and others render are here: http://andrew.triumf.ca/fonts/fonts.html
there isn't such a thing as THE linux, each ships with a different set of fonts. you might already know that sans serif refers to a family of fonts...
The sans-serif font will be an open-source alternative to the proprietary fonts you may be accustomed to.
As a generalisation, Linux distributions have support for TrueType fonts like Lucida, Helvetica and Arial, but you have to download them separately - they don't come pre-installed.
for example, see this link
If fonts are handled by fontconfig, they are defined in /etc/fonts. It seems the command 'fc-match' does the mapping from 'sans-serif' etc. to an actual font:
$ fc-match sans-serif Vera.ttf: "Bitstream Vera Sans" "Roman"
$ fc-match monospace VeraMono.ttf: "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" "Roman"