Re: Installing Fonts
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 10:13:07 +0100
Daniel Haude <dunno@stoptrick.com> wrote:
> First off - I can't believe I'm the only person having this trouble,
> but I couldn't find any useable information about this on the Net.
>
> Well, I'm trying to install a collection of TTF fonts on my Debian
> system. The strange thing is that I've managed it once but can't
> reproduce the way I did it. I added an appropriately named
> subdirectory under /usr/share/fonts/truetype in which I placed the
> fonts. Then, after failing to get my head around a single
> font-related manpage I ran a few of the scripts and programs I found
> mentioned and all of a sudden I could use the fonts.
>
> Then I tried it a again, about one hour later. After an hour's worth
> of failing completely, I gave up.
>
> Of all the font-related manpages, I found defoma-user's the most
> enlightening. It consists of a single line that says:
>
> "I have no idea what defoma-user does just yet. I'm working on it.."
>
> Can anybody point me to some intelligeble information on this subject?
> The way I think this /should/ work is:
>
> 1. Place new fonts into some specific directory or a subdirectory
> thereof
> 2. Run some script that scans the fonts directory tree to build
> some database/cache (actually, fc-cache seems to do just that.
> But I can't see any useful result.)
> 3. Possibly restart X
> 4. Use the fonts
>
>
>
> The fact that there seems to be no mechanism that works just like that
> indicates that font management under X is infintely more complicated
> than I can begin to fathom. Why is that?
>
> Thanks,
> --Daniel
>
>
I came across a concise explanation of fonts in X back when I used to
use Redhat Linux. See this old link (search for "font"):
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/release-notes/x86/
Basically, placing your fonts
under /usr/share/fonts/, /usr/local/share/fonts, or ~/.fonts will
immediately make those fonts available to programs which use
fontconfig. This means all of GNOME, KDE, Firefox, amomg others. You can
confirm this with the command "fc-list". That is sufficient for most
users.
Making your available to the X server itself requires a bit more work,
but it can be automated using the "defoma" package.
--
Liam
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