[erk, to the list now]
On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 08:25:30PM -0700, M. Kirchhoff said
> While looking through the deb-user archives for some font-related info, I
> discovered that there is still an insane amount of confusion regarding fonts
> under XFree86. Googling, which new users tend to rely on, results in myriad yet
> often contracting font guides.
>
> The two biggies--The Font De-Uglification HowTo and the Font Howto--are outdated
> and hopelessly outdated, respectively. They both contain a wealth of important
> info, but, alas, that info is likely to send new users down a very dark tunnel
> of inexorable agitation. I know, I was one of them.
Yup, I agree.
I've answered a few font questions on this list, and I had a little
pre-canned reply, which I've expanded. It's available from
http://egads.ertius.org/~rob/font_guide.txt, and I pasted it below so
everyone can criticize it constructively :)
========================================================================
A very short guide to setting up fonts for X in Debian. It assumes
XFree86 4.1 or more recent, and explains how to setup fontconfig and
Xft1.
1) Install x-ttcidfont-conf and defoma
2) Add a line like this to /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, in the "Files" section
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
Adding it at the top of the list is probably a good idea. This line
will setup XFree86 to use any TrueType fonts you install from Debian
packages. If you install a new set of TrueType fonts while in X, run
"xset fp rehash" to get XFree86 to look at the contents of that
directory again and to pickup new ones.
3) Move this line to the bottom of the list of FontPaths
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
XFree86 does a rather poor job of rendering Type1 fonts these days,
and if this is above your better looking fonts, you can get a some
pretty ugly results.
4) Add :unscaled to the end of the 100dpi and 75dpi font lines, so they
look like this
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
Without the ":unscaled" bit, XFree86 will try to scale these bitmap
fonts up and down, which usually looks rather horrible.
And, after all that, my Files section looks like this:
Section "Files"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
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:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
EndSection
Now that it's all setup, install some font packages. ttf-bitstream-vera
is a rather nice set of fonts, and is Free enough to go into Debian
itself. It's not in woody yet, but you can download the .deb from
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/ttf-bitstream-vera/ttf-bitstream-vera_1.10-3_all.deb
(or your local mirror) and install it with "dpkg -i
ttf-bitstream-vera_1.10-3_all.deb" (as root). sid and sarge users are
just an "apt-get install ttf-bitstream-vera" away from it. Another
option is ttf-freefont, which is in all three current versions of
Debian.
Another alternative is to install Microsoft's Corefonts. They removed
the the fonts from their website, but the msttcorefonts package will
download them for you from a mirror. Note that these are NOT Free (in
the Debian sense), but you're permitted to at least use and download
them.
Both of these packages (and the other ttf-* packages in Debian) should
now Just Work, and appear available to all X programs that use the
regular "core" font system. This includes things like xterm, emacs and
most other non-KDE and non-GNOME applications.
Now, run "xfontsel" and select either "Microsoft" or "Bitstream" in the
fndry menu (click on the word "fndry"). Now look at the ungrayed out
entries in the "fmly" menu. You should have a bunch of either Microsoft
fonts (Verdana, Trebuchet, etc) or some Bitstream ones (or both).
For KDE2.2 and GNOME1.4 (with libgdkxft0, which is a hack to get GTK
1.2 to do anti-aliased font rendering), you need to setup Xft1, as
well. Xft1 is highly deprecated, and is basically only used by
GNOME1.4 and KDE2.2. For GNOME2 and KDE3, you need to setup
"fontconfig" which Xft2 uses to find fonts. I'll get to that in a
minute.
Edit /etc/X11/XftConfig and add a line like
dir "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
before the other dir lines. I don't have any xft1 stuff on my machine
anymore, so I'm not sure if you need to restart X or not before this
change will take effect. I seem to remember that "xftcache" would
update the Xft1 cache, but it'd be good if someone could confirm that
for me.
Now, for fontconfig. You shouldn't need to install anything extra for
this, since all the packages using fontconfig will Depend on it
(indirectly) already. First, look in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. There
should be a line like the one below. If not, open up
/etc/fonts/local.conf and add this
<dir>/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType</dir>
just after the <fontconfig> line.
Fontconfig should pick these up immediately, and "fc-list" should list
your new fonts. Another neat feature of fontconfig is that you can just
drop fonts in ~/.fonts/ and all your fontconfigified programs will have
access to them immediately.
--
Rob Weir <rweir@ertius.org> | mlspam@ertius.org | Do I look like I want a CC?
Words of the day: Ft. Knox arrangements beanpole UOP Legion of Doom Echelon
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