Emoji in Ubuntu

fonts.conf

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<!--
1. Download the Symbola font:
   http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Symbola707.zip

2. unzip the file and put Symbola.ttf (and any of the other fonts that strike your fancy)
   in your ~/.fonts/ directory

3. run `fc-cache -f`.  You can check to make sure the new fonts 
   were installed with `fc-list`.  You'll probably want to grep the copious output for Symbola

4. Put this file in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf (>=12.10) or ~/.fonts.conf (<=12.04)

5. Close all terminal windows, restart terminal

6. In your terminal Profile Preferences, set your font to 'Monospace'

If you're not using ubuntu's default terminal (gnome-terminal) then figure 
   out how to set your terminal font to 'monospace'
If you don't like the Ubuntu Mono font, change it to whatever you prefer,
   see comment in the file below
If you're going through various layers of ssh and tmux (don't use gnu screen) and such, 
   you'll need to make sure you've got your locale set up properly with an encoding of 
   UTF-8 at every link in the chain.
-->
<fontconfig>
  <!-- Font families -->
  <alias>
    <family>serif</family>
    <prefer>
      <family>DejaVu Serif</family>
      <family>Symbola</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>sans-serif</family>
    <prefer>
      <family>DejaVu Sans</family>
      <family>Symbola</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>monospace</family>
    <prefer>
      <family>DejaVu Sans Mono</family>
      <family>Symbola</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
</fontconfig>