Can anyone point me in the right direction for installing fonts (specifically truetype fonts) ? I've come across a few threads that mentioned taking a look at /etc/xorg.conf but the file doesn't seem to exist (a user mentioned it's not needed anymore or something..).

Thanks

copy the *.ttf files to /usr/share/fonts/TTF

then to update your font cache.

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KDE also has a built in font installer.

You can also create a .fonts directory in your ~ folder and drop them in there.

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It's generally a good idea to not mix add-on fonts with the distribution fonts -- you might overwrite something you don't want overwritten (files with the same name and the like).

You need to do the following as root.

I keep add-on fonts in /usr/local/share/fonts in directories named Adobe (the Adobe Type Library is in there), MSfonts (TTFs copies from Winders, naughty, I know) and myfonts (fonts I've picked up over the years that don't fit anywhere else).

For your TrueType font files you should
Not mandatory but recommended.

Then, in /etc/fonts I create a local.conf file that contains
and that takes care of that -- they're available system-wide to all applications.

Hope this helps some.

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I personally consider the procedure recommended by my "Optimizing Slackware Linux's Fonts" guide to be the best practice. See my .sig for the link.

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Thanks, that was very helpful.

Though, I do understand why there are so many font folders. Wouldn't it be easier to just have a single folder and then divide those into sub-folders that were application specific fonts? What's the difference between putting them in /usr/local/share/fonts/ and /usr/share/fonts if they both end up being available system-wide? One more question, how does the system know to read "local.conf" (I don't seem to have one by default)?

Generally, you want to have "like" font files in a "same" directory. Not for any real "technical" reasons but simply to keep things neat and orderly. There are a number of font directories in your installation
as above, each containing unique types of font files.

If you put your "local" font files in with the distribution fonts, that's perfectly all right but it turns out the be a little more neat and orderly to put "local" stuff in "local" directories if for no other reason than you'll know where they are.

The system reads whatever ".conf" files it finds in /etc/fonts. No magic involved; if you add one or more local .conf files in /etc/fonts, they'll be read (but there's no need to use multiples, one local configuration file is sufficient). In your case, the file /etc/fonts/local.conf would only contain one entry for the TrueType fonts.

It's not a bad idea to read through Dugan Chen's documentation at the link he give above (http://duganchen.ca/writings/slackware/fonts) -- lots of good ideas there.

Hope this helps some.

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Makes sense now, thanks again.