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There are a number of ways fonts can be added to X. Firstly, XFree86
has a font path which is just a list of several directories
or font servers where it searches for fonts. A font server
is just a background process that makes fonts available to XFree86.
An advantage of font servers is that they can send fonts to remote displays.
Recently, xfs ( the ``X font server'' ) has been patched
to support TrueType fonts, and run as a stand-alone program.
The patched version ships with Redhat and Redhat-based distributions,
and is included in XFree86 3.9.17 ( the latest version at the time of
writing. It will also be a part of XFree86 4.0 )
xfs is actually just the standard font server that comes
with XFree86. It's source code is part of the XFree86 source tree.
However, distributions have recently been shipping a version that runs
in stand alone mode.
The standalone X font server, with the TrueType support
patch ( the TrueType support takes place via a font server
called xfsft ) is probably the nicest font management
solution currently available. Its advantages include:
- Support for different types of fonts, including Type1, TrueType
and bitmap.
- Makes fonts available to remote displays.
- Greatly simplifies editing the fontpath -- you can do it via
the command line utility
chkfontpath, as opposed to
having to edit configuration files. This not only makes life
easier for users, it makes packaging more safer and more scriptable
for packagers.
Because different distributions ship with different configurations,
it is not true that one size fits all. We can split users up into
three groups:
- Your distribution ships with a standalone
xfs
and it has been patched to support TrueType. This group
includes Redhat users and users of derivatives of Redhat
such as Mandrake, TurboLinux, and Independence.
For this group, the wisest strategy is to install both TrueType
and Type1 fonts through xfs
- Some distributions ship with a stand alone
xfs
package, but no TrueType support (at the time of writing.
Note that XFree86 supports TrueType as of version 3.9.17 ).
This includes Debian. For these users, the best thing to do is use
xfs to install Type1 fonts, and install TrueType
fonts via xfstt. Debian users can seek out
the
TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
for information about installing TrueType fonts in Debian.
- If you don't have
xfs then you will need to install
Type1 fonts by adding to their XFree86 font path and
using xset. You should install TrueType
via xfstt.
XFree86 finds your fonts by searching a font path,
a list of directories ( or servers -- we'll explain this
further later. ) containing fonts.
When an application requests a font, it searches through
the directories in your font path one at a time until the font
is found.
To make fonts available requires you to set your font path.
You can add a directory to your font path with the command
xset fp+ directory
Once you have done this, you need to ask the X server to re-scan
for available fonts with the command
xset fp rehash
Since you will want these commands to run automatically, you should
put them in your .xinitrc file ( or possibly your
.Xclients or .xsession file -- this depends on
how you start X. It's convenient to make two of these files symlinks
to the other to avoid confusion ).
Another way to have the commands set automatically is edit XF86Config.
For example, to add /usr/share/fonts/myfonts to the fontpath
when X is started, edit XF86Config like this:
...
Section "Files"
...
FontPath /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
...
EndSection
...
The advantage of editing XF86Config is that the resulting changes
are system wide.
Run Type1inst
The easiest way to make Type1 fonts available to X is with the
help of the Type1inst utility. This is a perlscript that automatically
creates the fonts.dir and fonts.scale files that you need for X
to use the fonts. Simply CD to the directory, and run type1inst.
cd directory
type1inst
If You Have the xfs Package
Now you need to add the fonts to your fontpath. If you already
have the standalone
xfs running, you do this
by editing your xfs configuration file.
Redhat users can just use
chkfontpath.
the format is
chkfontpath --add directory
Your fonts should now be available to X. Now you
just run
xset fp rehash
and X will be able to find the new fonts.
If You Don't Have The xfs Package
In this case, you need to add the directory containing
your new fonts to the font path, as described previously.
Adding TrueType fonts is a little more difficult, because you need
to have a font server that is capable of serving TrueType fonts.
Two font servers that do this are xfstt and xfs.
xfstt is a TrueType font server. While it's easy to configure,
and quite useful, it appear that xfs is becoming more popular.
The main advantage of xfs over xfstt is that it supports
both Type1 and TrueType fonts.
xfstt
To set up xfstt, just download it and install it. If you have an rpm
based distribution, there is a well packaged version of xfstt at
http://independence.seul.org/.
Once you install it, you need to do the following:
-
install fonts into the appropriate
directory ( read the documentation that comes with the package ).
- cd to that directory and run
xfstt --sync. This causes it
to look for the fonts and create the fonts.dir file.
- Now add
unix/:7100 to your font path.
Your TrueType fonts should now display and be available to applications
such as GIMP and Netscape.
You may want to configure it to start every time your system starts up.
Check to see if there's a startup file included ( if you are using
RPM, you can use rpm -ql xfstt |grep init and look for the
file with a name something like this: /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfstt
)
If you don't have an init script, just
put two lines in /etc/rc.local like this:
/usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt --sync
/usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt &
Some of the newer Linux distributions ship with the X font server
xfs configured to run as a stand alone program.
Notably, Redhat and all the redhat based distributions use this
modularised xfs with TrueType compiled in.
Debian also ship xfs, but the version
they ship doesn't have built in true
type support.
Running xfs
as a stand alone server has several benefits, especially
if it is compiled with TrueType support. The main advantage is that since
the font server is no longer attached to the X server, it is possible
to serve fonts to remote displays. Also, it makes it much easier
to modify the font path.
The xfs Path
As a font server, xfs has it's own font path.
One might wonder where this fits into the picture. It
works like this: you can place the xfs font server
in XFree86's font path, by adding unix/:port to
the XFree86 font path.
Once you do this, any font in the xfs font path
automatically becomes available to XFree86.
The xfs font path
is determined by the xfs configuration file,
which is /etc/X11/fs/config on Redhat, and
/etc/X11/xfs/config on Debian.
Redhat users do not need to explicitly edit this file, they
can use the chkfontpath utility.
The syntax is simple:
chkfontpath --add directory
Users of other distributions can edit the configuration file as
follows:
catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
...
/usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/,
...
/usr/share/fonts/some_other_directory
# in 12 points, decipoints
default-point-size = 120
...
The above would add /usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/ to the
xfs font path. Note that the last line of the list of
directories doesn't have a comma at the end.
For these modifications to the font path to become effective, xfs
must be restarted. It's also a good idea to restart your
X session after restarting
xfs.
Installing a Font Into xfs
To prepare a font for xfs, you need to follow the following
steps:
- If you don't have xfs installed, you need to install it.
- Put the new fonts in a directory.
- If you are installing Type1 fonts,
prepare the new directory for the server
by running
type1inst in the directory.
- If you are installing
TrueType fonts, ( remember, not all distributions can do TrueType via
xfs ! ), prepare the new directory for the server by running
ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale
mkfontdir
in the directory containing your new fonts.
ttmkfdir is part of the freetype package.
- Now you can add the new directory to your
xfs search path.
Users of Redhat-like distributions
can do this with the chkfontpath utility:
Other users can do this by editing their xfs configuration
file.
- if
xfs is already installed on your system,
you should see which port it is running on. You can do this
as follows:
ps ax|grep xfs
- Then check your XFree86 font path.
xset -q
- If your font path includes something like
unix:/port_number
were port_number is the port which the server is running on, then
you already have xfs set up properly. Otherwise, you should add it to
your XFree86 font path.
xset fp+ unix/:port_number
xset fp rehash
You can add it permanently by editing your .xinitrc as explained
previously.
To add it system wide, edit your XF86Config file ( probably either
/etc/X11/XF86Config, /etc/XF86Config or
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config ), by adding a
line FontPath "unix:/port_number" in the Files section.
Here's an example:
...
Section "Files"
...
FontPath "unix/:-1"
...
EndSection
...
- If
xfs is already properly installed, then you can restart
it like this:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart
- After restarting
xfs, it's a good idea to restart your
X-session.
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