Gvim: Ubuntu letter spacing (Consolas font)

Question

Thought I could just copy my vimrc from my Windows to my Linux box but running into a few problems with the letter spacing on Ubuntu.

Answer 1

AFAIK the :h thing only works on Windows and OS X, in Linux it should be

:set guifont=Consolas\ 11

The weird display is usually caused by wrong font setting. If you are using gvim in different OSs, you can put this to your .gvimrc:

if has("gui_gtk2")
    set guifont=Consolas\ 11
elseif has("gui_macvim")
    set guifont=Consolas:h12
elseif has("gui_win32")
    set guifont=Consolas:h11
end

Answer 2

I don't know what the :h directive is supposed to do, but

:set guifont=Consolas:h11

yields horrible intraletter spacing, but

:set guifont=Consolas\ 11

is fine. (But set guifont=Droid\ Sans\ Mono is better still ;)