Emacs-23 can use great (Xft) fonts too

Check out the following link for details:
http://peadrop.com/blog/2007/01/06/pretty-emacs/

Basically you need to do the following if you are using ubuntu feisty like me (there is a repo for gutsy too):

Add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
---------------------------------------------------------------
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/avassalotti/ubuntu feisty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/avassalotti/ubuntu feisty main
---------------------------------------------------------------

Then do a "sudo apt-get update" followed by
"sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot emacs-snapshot-el"

This will install the required emacs package.

Then add the required font line to your ~/.Xresources file. In my case, I wanted to use "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" at 10 points size. So I appended the following line to my ~/.Xresources file:
--------------------------------------------
Emacs.font: Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-10
--------------------------------------------

Then in order for this to take effect, I did an
"xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources".

After that I fired up emacs, and lo and behold... the world's
greatest 'editor' now with Xft font support :-)