Re: font fix found, but how to make it stick?

[Russell Shaw <rjshaw@iprimus.com.au>]

debl@noid.net wrote:
> Hi to all,
>
> I have an old X client that requests this font:
>
>   -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*
>
>   ( /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/helvB12.pcf.gz )
>
> Unfortunately, iso10646 encoding causes this client to show only boxes.
>
> I've found that I can fix it by manually editing
> /usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/fonts.dir like so:
>
>   < helvB12.pcf.gz -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-70-iso10646-1
>   ---
>   > helvB12.pcf.gz -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--12-120-75-75-p-70-iso8859-1
>
> ... changing the encoding to iso8859 for the font in question.
>
> My problem is that 'update-fonts-dir' completely un-does my edit!  There's
> probably a defoma tweak that I need to make, but I can't figure it out.  Is
> there a global setting to always prefer iso8859 for all fonts when possible?
>
> Any help is be greatly appreciated!

Change the name of the font in the font files. update-fonts-dir will
regenerate fonts.dir from that info. man update-fonts-dir

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-customized-programs.html#s11.8.5

The kernel has language settings you can select for things like 8859 etc.