Looking for simple font howto, slack 9
 

I have a new install of slackware 9.0.
I don't have an available windows directory from which to get fonts.
I don't want to install that dropline version of gnome.

Is there a simple howto somewhere for obtaining some ttf fonts and making them available to slackware 9.0?

I use windowmaker and gnome, off and on. The gnome-terminal only has about 10 or a dozen ugly fonts. The same few ugly fonts are the only fonts available to mozilla also.

I simply want to get some new fonts, anti-aliased fonts I suppose, install them, and use them.

I've searched through several threads here, but haven't been able to figure out exactly what to do.

Thanks...

Hi,

Try:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/TT-XFree86-2.html

Hope that helps ...

There are no fonts to download at that site. And that document says
"The latest verion of XFree86 (currently 4.0.2)...." Isn't it up to 4.3.0, or something, now.

Once you find some fonts to download, are those instructions what any new slackware user has to do get good fonts working, without installing some new gnome or having an available windows partition? And if that's the case, why is that ttmkfdir not included with slackware?

And I already have a /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF directory where those ugly luxi... fonts are. (Maybe they aren't ugly. Maybe it's just the way they are 'rendered' on the screen?)

Where would another new slackware user find this info if he didn't know about these forums?

Is this just one of many options that happened to work for you?

Anybody have a link to some actual fonts to download, uh... that'll give mozilla a smooth look like Internet Explorer?

Thanks...

I guessed your main problem was the howto, like says the title. For fonts look at:
http://www.1001freefonts.com
or
http://www.fontfreak.com/index2.htm

Slackware 7.0 has a package called xfstt.tgz, worth looking into. There is
also a man page for this font server. As well as some documentation in
/usr/doc/xfstt-1.1/

Oh, sorry... You're right. The howto was the thing originally.

I don't have an xfstt-n.n file on slack 9, but there are several xfs* files, including a /usr/doc/xfsprogs-2.3.5. I see that xfs is the X font server. I'll have to do some reading up on that. (Too bad it can't be a simple thing to have some nice fonts in your browser and terminal.)

Man, those links to fonts are like those porn sites that I ..uh.. have uh.. heard about. I had to kill off a bunch of pop ups and pop unders!

Is there a link to a simple download for the microsoft type fonts? I hit on one site that had a link from linux.org, but that location said that downloading of fonts from Microsoft had been discontinued.

And also, the question remains about the steps to nice fonts. Is that ttmkfdir thing the normal, usual, standard way that all slackware users have to go through to get nice fonts (again, short of dropline and having a windows link)?

Thanks...

Edit: that /usr/doc/xfsprogs-2.3.5 is a directory. but there are still several xfs files i can read.

I've used it (ttmkfdir), but it's not that
much of a pain ;)

As for xfs, it's quite plain:
to your /etc/X11/XF86Config file add
FontPath "unix/localhost:7100"
where all other fonts live,

and to /etc/rc.d/rc.local (that's where I put it,
anyway ;}):
/usr/X11R6/bin/xfs&

Cheers,
Tink

Hmmm...

Ok, I looked in my XF86Config file and found this:

It's interesting that that TTF directory is not in there.

So, should I add that directory there, or is it better to add that

FontPath "unix/localhost:7100"

in there, or both?

And, so, that xfs is not automatically run when you start X, so it has be added in somewhere, for instance, as you mentioned, in the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file. And these fontpaths aren't actually used from XF86Config until you run xfs??

And that should do it? Is there also something special I have to do to get the so-called anti-aliasing? Is anti-aliasing a part of .ttf fonts? (I could rtfm, if someone could point me to the fm that covers this specifically.)

Now, if I can just find a simple one file download for those microsoft kind of fonts that'll give my mozilla and terminal - IE kind of happiness.

Dang... So many questions...

Thanks again for the input.

(I need to get out of this WTF stack and get back to what I was doing. But, hey, this would come up eventually anyway.)

I have some instructions that I wrote for earlier versions of slackware that should still work here, you can download the fonts here, or send me an email.

Font handling has changed in Slackware 9.0
 

Font handling has changed in Slackware 9.0. It now uses the Xft2/FontConfig X11 font extensions to handle fonts. What this means for you is that adding the true type fonts once you obtain them is relatively easy. You can either create a directory in /usr/share/fonts called TTF, ttf, truetype, or whatever you feel like naming it, and copy the font files there (kind of the standard thing to do with fonts that didn't come with the system), or add them in the directory you found with the true type fonts that are already on the system (which really aren't very good fonts). After that, the fonts will appear alongside the others once you reboot your system because rebooting will cause fc-cache to run on the font directories in these locations. You can also run fc-cache manually with the font directory you want to update as an argument, e.g. fc-cache /usr/share/fonts/TTF (as root).

EDIT***
One thing I forgot to mention is that there must be universal read permission on the font files you add. This can easily be accomplished with a

chmod +r *.ttf

command as root in the directory you create for your True Type fonts.

Hmmm..... fonts is fun.... :rolleyes:

So, font handling has changed in slack 9.

But, is that cabextract and msttcorefonts-1.3.4.spec and rpmbuild thing from http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ the way to go to actually get fonts?

And, is the fontpath stuff in XF86Config no longer applicable?

And, do I then need to add xfs to rc.local?

And, do I need to add that extra fontpath option to XF86Config?

And, then, is ttmkfdir no longer applicable with slack 9?

:confused:

Sorry I didn't answer sooner. I would have if I hadn't become ill yesterday.
Not exactly, but the two links under the heading "Just the Fonts" will get you what you need if you're not afraid of compiling the cabextract program from source. You can then use it to extract the font files directly from the .exe files provided from the sourceforge site. Another option is just to copy the fonts you need from anybody's Windows installation. You only need the .ttf files themselves. Just be sure to copy only those fonts which are freely redistributable or for which you have a license.
The fontpath information is now supposed to be in the fonts.conf file, so the fontpaths in XF86Config should no longer matter. Remember that you can use the true type fonts that are already on your system and they are not included in your current XF86Config fontpath.
No, you don't need to run a fontserver unless you want to serve fonts from one machine to another. You didn't really need xfs in Slackware 8.x either.
No. Again, the fontpath information is in the fonts.conf file, which already points to any and every subdirectory under your XFree86 font directory (so it includes the fonts you already have) as well as any and every subdirectory under /usr/share/fonts (so you can add fonts there as well if you like; see my previous post).
It is no longer needed. The fc-cache program, which runs every time you reboot in a default Slackware 9 build, fills that niche.

I hope this information helps you.

So, I'm glad I waited and continued to gather info before I tested any of these other methods. One general problem I've had with linux is that, not knowing exactly what to do in some situations, I've tested stuff and eventually would get to a point where I wasn't sure what was going on anymore and so I would reformat and reinstall the distro.

Here, I was able to copy the font files I found in c:\winnt\fonts from my W2K machine, via cd-rw, and simply copied them into my /usr/share/fonts directory and rebooted. There they are! And this is one of the font directories in the /etc/fonts/fonts.config file.

Now I have the fonts available in mozilla and gnome-terminal, although they still look a little clunky. I have a geforce3 card and the latest nvidia driver (...4363...run) installed.

What else do I need to do to smooth out the fonts and make them 'prettier'?

Thanks for all the replies. Even though the other methods weren't necessarily 'right' for my slack 9 machine, they are still good things to know.

My slackware 9 (purchased cd subscription set) doesn't have the program fc-cache installed for some reason.

I copied my TrueType fonts directory from my windows partition to /usr/share/fonts and there's a README file in that folder that says:

1. Quick usage

Once your fontmaps are set up, you do not need to use much of the
complex arguments below. Old fontmaps are always scanned initially,
so if you want to add fonts, simply run:

gnome-font-install -t=/your/fontmap/file/name DIRS...

but when I try to run gnome-font-install -t=/usr/share/fonts/TrueType i get the error message: gnome-font-install: command not found

also when I try /usr/X11R6/bin/fc-cache /usr/share/fonts/TrueType there's a pause as if its doing something but then a close and re-open of mozilla still shows ugly font rendering.


****EDIT*****

Nevermind. A re-boot of the computer solved the problem! I have all the fonts available in mozilla and even the ones on my gnome desktop changed to nice fonts! Man I'm glad I found this thread useing the search feature. Thanks' for the help yall gave the original poster!

So in a nutshell/summary to anyone else using Slack 9 that finds this thread wondering how to install TTF's all you have to do once you have them is:

1) Copy them to /usr/share/fonts/TrueType (TrueType is merely an example that can be anything)
2) Reboot your computer
3) enjoy your new fonts.