Re: Debian Font Guide for Newbies and the Confused
Rob Weir, great guide, thanks!
Two questions though from someone with no fonts understanding. It
seems assumed that:
FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
is right out? (I think someone in this thread mentioned a font server
not being necessary for "most users")
Also, one of the debconf messages told me to put:
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
along with the TrueType path you mentioned in your guide. Again
it seems assumed this is either undesired or needless?
Paul
->>In response to your message<<-
--received from Rob Weir--
>
> ========================================================================
>
> 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
> Hi, VeriSign! bob@74a2438296bc89632469e1e1321f28f3.com
--
Paul Yeatman (858) 534-9896 pyeatman@ucsd.edu
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