[SOLVED] Installing fonts as non-root user

roygbiiv · 08-17-2011, 04:13 PM

I want to use the nice looking Tamsyn programming font for my terminals on the universitys Red Hat pc's, but obviously I don't have root privileges there. By using it I mean to put something like this in an .Xresources file and make it work in the terminal:

Code:

XTerm.font:    xft:Tamsyn:size=10

The font directory downloaded from the Tamsyn website contains the following files:

Code:

-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  18K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn6x11b.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 3.3K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn6x11b.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  18K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn6x11r.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 3.3K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn6x11r.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  19K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x12b.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 3.6K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x12b.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  19K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x12r.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 3.6K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x12r.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  20K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x14b.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 4.1K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x14b.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  21K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x14r.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 4.1K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn7x14r.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  21K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x15b.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 4.3K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x15b.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  21K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x15r.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 4.3K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x15r.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  23K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x17b.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 4.8K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x17b.psf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht  23K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x17r.pcf
-rw------- 1 wictorht wictorht 4.8K 2011-02-09 09:09 Tamsyn8x17r.psf

How can I possibly install or enable this font for my user without root privileges? Any answer possibly leading me somewhere is great, as I don't have experience with installing fonts manually on my other pc running Arch Linux.

Thanks

andrewthomas · 08-18-2011, 09:54 AM

The ~/.fonts directory can be used for installing fonts locally.

Create it if it does not exist.

roygbiiv · 08-18-2011, 01:49 PM

Thanks alot! I have put all the files in ~/.fonts dir and the fonts works fine with gnome-terminal. That was easy! But wait... what? It does not work with Xterm and my ~/.Xresources file?

Code:

XTerm.faceName: xft:Tamsyn:size=10
!or
XTerm.faceName: xft:Tamsyn:pixelsize=10

Any suggestions people?

Some output:

Code:

fc-list | grep Tamsyn
Tamsyn:style=Regular
Tamsyn:style=Bold

knudfl · 08-18-2011, 02:56 PM

man xterm http://linux.die.net/man/1/xterm

I am not sure, that you can trick xterm to use other fonts,
than those compiled into the binary ?

More information : cat /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Xterm
> > Using a different font, example :
xterm -fn -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1

.

knudfl · 08-18-2011, 03:03 PM

*

Sorry, it's "/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/XTerm" in Redhat EL 5.

And: The example in #4 also works with : xterm -fn 10x20

..

roygbiiv · 08-18-2011, 03:16 PM

Thank, but /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/ is empty.

I tried putting the following in an .Xdefaults instead, but it didn't work:

Code:

XTerm*faceName:             Tamsyn
XTerm*faceSize:             10

Don't know if this has something to do with the xterm version at school:

Code:

me@school $ xterm -version
XTerm(215)
me@home $ xterm -version
XTerm(271)

I will check if this works on my own computer.

roygbiiv · 08-18-2011, 03:54 PM

Ok, I think found a solution.

On my homecomputer the font worked perfectly by putting the *.pcf file into the ~/.fonts dir and having this setting in ~/.Xresources:

Code:

XTerm*faceName: xft:Tamsyn:size=10

and also by specifying the font on the command line:

Code:

$ xterm -fa xft:Tamsyn -fs 10

On my school computer it doesn't seem to like xft, so it falls back to Bistream Vera Sans Mono - by ommitting xft it seems that it works:

Code:

$ xterm -fa Tamsyn -fs 10

knudfl · 08-18-2011, 04:36 PM

Quote:

xterm -fa Tamsyn -fs 10

Well done. Works here too with the Tamsyn fonts in /usr/share/fonts/misc/

But I still think, you get a much nicer font with : xterm -fn 10x20