an abundance of FontPaths

michapma · 11-29-2005, 03:48 AM

Hi all,

To start off with the info for this machine:
Debian Sarge 3.1r0a (stable, unmixed)
kernel 2.6.8-1-686-smp
XFree86 4.3
Gnome, KDE, XFCE4, Icewm and Fluxbox installed (mostly trying out the first three)

I've been trying to follow Making non-antialiased fonts look nice. I've also been reading some other guides in parallel, trying to come to grips -- at least to some extent -- with how fonts work in X and specifically in Debian. I've only made a couple of system-wide changes so far, most everything else was playing around with Gnome and KDE configuration panels and XF86XConfig-4 (including adding "DisplaySize 337.5 270.0" on the Monitor section to ensure 96dpi). The command history tells me that I've run "dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig" a couple times, as well as "dpkg-reconfigure defoma" once, and I added a TTF font (Tahoma) through the KDE control panel.

I've now managed to uglify my fonts and have paused following the non-AA-look-nice guide while I try to figure out what has been going on in XF86Config-4. Since I ran the dpkg-reconfigure yesterday, my FontPath list has grown.

Code:

Section "Files"
        # FontPath              "unix/:7100"                    # local font server (I commented it out)
        # if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
        # added this after installing msttcorefonts:
        FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
        # the rest:
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled" # I added the :unscaled
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
        FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/local/share/fonts" # <- apparently added by KDE font installer
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
        FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/type1"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
        FontPath        "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

What's new are the paths with /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/. After the initial X installation, the main font paths were the ones here: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/. I had manually reordered the font paths, but I guess the dpkg-reconfigure did them for me anew.

My main questions so far: Why suddenly the new font paths? I don't think I selected any new options when running fontconfig and defoma, so why would something have changed? Aren't the FontPath declarations redundant? I specifically don't understand why X11R6 in the path refers to or implies.

Also, what might have caused my fonts to uglify? (It's not critical since I stopped in the middle of "fixing" things.) In Gnome, for example: in Firefox some are non-aliased and others are. Whether I choose Sans or Bitstream Vera Sans, the smaller fonts (say at 10) look non-AA, but when they are larger they are anti-aliased.

My goal is to get the fonts in Debian (in all WMs and DEs) to look similar to those achieved by Franklin, the author of the non-AA-look-nice thread linked above:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze8992v/

Ultimately, I would like to be able to fairly easily switch between that look and anti-aliased fonts, though in the end I'll probably just choose one and stick with it.

Any advice appreciated.

Dead Parrot · 11-29-2005, 10:59 AM

Most of those fontpaths are redundant. /usr/lib/X11 is a symlink to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 and /var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType should manage all your truetype and cid fonts that are installed under /usr/share/fonts/truetype/* -- provided that you have the "x-ttcidfont-conf" package installed (you can check this with "dpkg -l x-ttcidfont-conf") and you've entrusted font management to defoma (you can check this by running "dpkg-reconfigure libpango1.0-common").

To see where your fonts have actually been installed you can run "fc-cache -fv".

To see what fonts x-ttcidfont-conf actually manages you can type "ls -l /var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType".

You should read /usr/share/doc/fontconfig/README.Debian and /usr/share/doc/x-ttcidfont-conf/README.Debian for some more information.

michapma · 11-30-2005, 04:22 AM

Great info, thanks for the help. I should have thought of reading local information instead of trying to Google everything.

I knew that x-ttcidfont-conf is installed; I installed it manually and added that line to XF86Config-4 myself. (I started the installation with just Debian base and apt-get'ed everything from there, à la macondo's how-to, so I've followed several of your tips on fonts before.)

fc-cache looks like it's going to come in handy in the future. (Simple man page, I like that, heh heh.)

" 'E's not pining for the fjords!"

cheers