Comment 97 for bug 431217

A patched version of ttf-corefonts-installer is available in my ppa for lucid and karmic.

It fixes the downloading and proxy issues and doesn't fail the whole installation if some fonts failed to download.
For those brave enough please give it a try and report if you succeeded or any error you may find.

To add the repository open a terminal and run:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jibel/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Remember that this is an experimental version of the package, so use it at your own risk.

Thanks for your help.