Re: Fonts: the Neverending Struggle
On Sat, 2003-06-14 at 02:33, M. Kirchhoff wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I've spent the last two days scouring Google and the Debian-User archives in
> search of help with fonts under X (specifically, XFree86 4.2 and Fluxbox 0.1.7-3
> under Woody). In my search, I discovered that there is a lack of consistent,
> up-to-date information. For example, the XFree86 Font De-uglification How-To at
> TLDP (http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/) proved to be the most useful, yet it
> is almost eight months outdated. Most of the other guides were even older.
> Even so, I read through most of them, but I'm now more confused than ever,
> particularly with regard to the various font servers. Just today, however, I
> discovered a post by Rob
> Weir(http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2003/debian-user-200301/msg00729.html),
> who notes the following:
>
> "
> > Before starting, I should state that I "think" I am running the Xserver
> > without an additional font server (ie neither xfs or xfs-xtt, not xfstt), as
> > I can't quite understand why I should need it . I presume that the
> > libfreetype module loaded by the x-server should suffice.[So if someone can
> > explain why ought to use pne of the above font servers I would be interested
> > to listen]
>
> AFAIK, this is correct. XFree86 4.0 introduced support for TrueType
> fonts, so a font server is useless for 99% of users. If you have a
> bunch of machines, it might be useful to share fonts amongst them, but
> aside from that, 'no'.
> "
>
> If it's true that font servers aren't really necessary, then what is the easiest
> way to get good looking fonts simply using the XFree86 config files?
>
> Another problem is simply the lack of decent fonts. Most of the guides refer
> users to the free Microsoft TrueType font pack; however, it seems that those
> links are all dead now that Microsoft no longer offers them. When I try to do
> "apt-get install msttcorefonts", I get an error message about them no longer
> being available (sorry I don't my debian box handy to grab the exact error
> message). Is there a font-site-to-end-all-font-sites out there somewhere?
>
> Font problems seem to be some of the most frustrating and difficult to deal with
> in regards to Debian and GNU/Linux in general, particularly for newbies like
> myself. I've heard that the latest versions of distros like RedHat and SuSe
> offer great font support and goodies like anti-aliasing right out of the box,
> which is great for recent converts from the Windows world, where good looking
> type is a no brainer. But for newbies like me who prefer Debian
> and--especially--who run older hardware and thus prefer more lightweight X
> managers like Fluxbox over full environments like Gnome or KDE, it's a real pain!
>
> Basically, I'm in search of how-tos or any other kind of help that fills the
> eight-month gap in font coverage in those older how-tos.
The most important thing, which cannot be found in any debian manual or
howto I know of, is:
create ~/.Xresources and add to it
Xft.autohint: 1
then enable antialiased fonts in KDE (if you use kde), in the kde
control center.
You'll notice a big font improvement in all apps that use a dynamically
linked freetype2 (KDE, GNOME, Mozilla, ...). This is because you have
disabled the bytecode interpreter, which reads the bytecodes in true
type fonts. This is useful if you don't have antialiasing, but is ugly
if you do use antialiasing.
if you don't use antialiasing, don't add that line.
You could also install
apt-get install ttf-xfree86-nonfree
to have some nice ttf fonts.
Then install the 100dpi and 75dpi fonts for X:
apt-get install xfonts-100dpi
apt-get install xfonts-75dpi
and in the /etc/X11XF86Config, swap the lines in the following way:
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
so that 75dpi is above the other lines. This way, gtk1 apps like xmule
or xcdroast will have nicer fonts (though not antialiased).
> Thanks to any and all help!!!
>
> Sincerely,
> M. Kirchhoff
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