Re: Why are so many people using font servers?

[Thomas Hood <jdthood2@yahoo.co.uk>]

Some people have said that they find fonts confusing in Debian.
Here is what I wrote about fonts & Debian on my page about
Debian GNU/Linux on a ThinkPad 600:
    (http://panopticon.csustan.edu/thood/tp600lnx.htm#secfnt)

Fonts
=====

First, read the Font-HOWTO in the documentation directory. 

XFree86 4 handles both Type 1 and truetype fonts.  To install a font by
hand, what you need to do is stick your font files in a directory
somewhere, create the fonts.dir file in that directory, and add the
directory's path to the font path specified in XF86Config-4.

Where should you put your font files?  Well, Debian hasn't straightened
this out yet, so in the meantime chaos reigns. 
  * X fonts from the xfonts-* packages are put in subdirectories of
    /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts. 
  * The ttf-larabie-* packages put their fonts in subdirectories of
    these subdirectories.  
To use the larabie fonts, the latter subdirectories must be named in the
font path list. 
  * The msttcorefonts package downloads Microsoft fonts into
    /usr/share/fonts/truetype and calls defoma to symlink to them from
    /var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType.  The
    ttf-thryomanes and ttf-freefont packages put their fonts in
    subdirectories of /usr/share/fonts/truetype and call defoma to
    symlink to them from
    /var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType.  
To use these fonts, /var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType
must be named in the font path list. 
  * The ttf-openoffice package puts its fonts in
    /usr/share/fonts/truetype/openoffice but doesn't set up any
    symlinks.  
To use this font, /usr/share/fonts/truetype/openoffice must be named in
the font path list. 
  * Installing OpenOffice adds the "OpenSymbol" font to
    /usr/lib/openoffice/share/fonts/truetype. 
OpenOffice can use this font without further ado, but to use it in other
X applications, /usr/lib/openoffice/share/fonts/truetype must be named
in the font path list.  

Storing the fonts in /usr/share/fonts/... and using defoma to set up
symlinks for various font-using apps, in the manner of msttcorefonts,
ttf-thryomanes and ttf-freefont, has been the recent trend.  Defoma is
probably going to be supplanted by fontconfig, however, so more upheaval
is in store. 

Getting fonts
=============

My XF86Config-4 file lists the fonts I use:
=---------------------------------------------------------------------
Section "Files"
# local font server:
# (XFree86 4 has a font server built in, so this isn't needed.)
#       FontPath        "unix/:7100"
# xfonts-* packages:
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
# Wolfram Mathematica (must be listed
# fairly early due to a bug in M'tica):
        FontPath        "/usr/local/mathematica/SystemFiles/Fonts/Type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/local/mathematica/SystemFiles/Fonts/X"
# defoma-managed fonts from packages:
#    ttf-thryomanes
#    ttf-freefont
#    msttcorefonts
        FontPath       
"/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
# ttf-openoffice package (no longer in Debian):
#       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/openoffice"
# openoffice.org package:
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/openoffice/share/fonts/truetype"
# ttf-larabie-* packages:
#       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/larabie-straight"
# ttf-commercial package:
# miscellaneous websites and CD-ROMs:
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/arialuni"
#       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/type1/cmpsfont"
#       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/type1/amspsfnt"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Windows"
#       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Compton"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/code2000"
# made by myself with pfaedit:
#       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/JDTH"
EndSection
=---------------------------------------------------------------------

The "freefont" collection of fonts is rather good.  Get it in the
ttf-freefont package.

If you don't have Microsoft's zero-cost fonts on your machine you can
install the msttcorefonts package which downloads and installs these
fonts for you.  You might want to do this, rather than copy the fonts
from a Windows partition, because Microsoft has added many new glyphs
over time.  

Microsoft has also released a huge "Arial Unicode MS" font which
includes most of the glyphs defined in the Unicode spec. 

To install additional commerical fonts you can use the ttf-commercial
package. 

To install additional fonts by hand use the ttmkfdir and mkfontdir
utilities (from the ttmkfdir and xutils packages, respectively) to
create the required fonts.dir file. 

-- 
Thomas Hood <jdthood2@yahoo.co.uk>