In GNOME GUI
Here is a method for doing this via Gnome. In gnome, choose Places | Home Folder from the menu panel (ie open nautilus). When file browser opens, enter “fonts:///” as the Location. Then simply drag the new font into the fonts directory.

Alternately, you can get to the fonts directory by going to System | Preferences | Font. This will bring up a Font Preferences dialog with a Details button. Click “Details…” then click the button “Go to font folder”. Now drag fonts into fonts directory.

Either of these methods will install the font(s) for your local user. You can see them in the ~/.fonts folder.

1. Installing fonts for single login use
1a. using kfontview
The easiest way to install fonts is using kfontview. Try running “kfontview” from the command line.
If you do not have kfontview installed, as root run:

# apt-get install kcontrol

This will download a few dependencies, so if you are short on disk space or simply do not want to install KDE, use the instructions in step 1b

Run “kfontview” from the command line
From the kfontview window, open the font you have downloaded.
Click on the “Install” button
NOTICE: You will probably need to resize the window to see the “Install” button which is in the lower right hand corner.
Click on the “Personal” button

1b. by hand
If ~/.fonts does not exist, create it:

$ mkdir ~/.fonts

Copy the font, from the command line, run the following:

$ cp [fontfile] ~/.fonts

From the command line, run the following:

$ fc-cache -f -v ~/.fonts

or alternatively, log out, and log back in.

2. Installing for system wide use
Make the following directory as root:

# mkdir /usr/share/fonts/truetype/myfonts

Copy the font(s) into the newly created directory:

# cp [fonts] /usr/share/fonts/truetype/myfonts

Run the following:

# fc-cache -f -v

3. Installing Windows Fonts (eg. Times New Roman)
Make sure you have the “universe” repository added. If not, as root, modify your /etc/apt/sources.list and uncomment the deb line which will look something like this:

# deb http://us.archive.Ubuntu.com/Ubuntu dapper universe

Then update apt-get:

Run the following as root: