Fonts in Linux (RedHat 9)

[Rob G.]

I'm trying to get true-type fonts to work in Linux (RedHat 9).

I've gone through the instuctions on this page: http://linux.org.mt/article/ttfonts

and now some of the applications can see my fonts, but I'm still unable to use them for desktop/menu/windows in KDE or Gnome.

Since the standard fonts in Linux look like crap I'm really wanting to get this working. I'm not a fan of anti-aliasing.

 

[drag]

did you try using the font selection tools for gnome and kde?

It should be in your menu somewhere, but for gnome the program is called gnome-font-properties

 

[cleverhandle]

The page you linked to is obsolete. Unless you did some kind of custom installation, TrueType fonts should be installed and work out of the box on Red Hat 9. If you look through the selection in the GNOME or KDE font selectors, you should be seeing TrueType fonts in there. If you want to get the MS core fonts, follow the instructions at corefonts.sourceforge.net.

 

[Rob G.]

Thanks for the info. I've got several hundred fonts I use on one of my Windows boxes that I'd like to port onto the Linux PC but the main reason is to try and get the general desktop fonts looking good. I don't like the softening effect anti-aliasing produces (I never use it in Windows) and without it, fonts in X look appalling.

What I can't figure out is why all the TT fonts were available to - say - OpenOffice, but didn't appear in the choices under KDE or Gnome for use on the general desktop. I know Linux handles fonts pretty badly but I didn't really expect to run into these kinds of problems.

 

[Rob G.]

OK, I've copied all of the Windows fonts into:

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF

...and run ttmkfdir and mkfontdir.

I've also removed the previous method I tried and removed the entry in /etc/X11/fs/config

OpenOffice can see the TTF fonts but KDE and Gnome cannot.

So what do I have to do to use TTF on my desktop?

 

[manly]

Someone here knows better than I do, but in RH9, you drop the fonts into ~/.fonts or something like that. It's all seamless like cleverhandle said.

 

[cleverhandle]

Don't know much KDE, but try this for GNOME... as root, open a nautilus window and enter fonts:/// in the address bar. Drop your fonts in there.

I'm not sure exactly how the OpenOffice font handling differs from GNOME/KDE, and I don't want to find out now. As you suspect, the underlying font architecture is very, very messy and, moreover, has seen vast changes over the last year or two. So any document you find online has a high probability of being obsolete.

As for anti-aliasing, if you don't like Red Hat's unaliased look, you may be interested in the tips I wrote up here. Makes a big difference to unaliased fonts.