Redhat Font Server Step By Step

— still there, not restarted

— ok, gone

— no chinese!

Try other windows, also no chinese!

use xset -q to query the fontpath, all window's fontpath have been changed to tcp/localhost:7100!

So, xset is not only limited to the current xwindow. It operates on the entire x-window system!

So, should really use xset -q to see previous value first!

OK:

NOK:

— no Chinese any more! reset font path & do again, ok.

— ok in cxterm!

— quite normal

— no Chinese any more! reset font path & do again, ok.

BP solution does not include getting the fonts from X font server.

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/truetype.html#XFS

Redhat's xfs

As of Redhat Linux 6.0, Redhat based distributions (Mandrake, etc) have included a specially patched version of xfs, the XFree86 Font Server, and patched X servers as well. Redhat's xfs includes the xfsft patch set which in turn is built upon the FreeType Font library. Redhat's xfs provides similar functionality to xfstt. xfs is able to serve both TrueType and Type 1 fonts, as well as legacy X fonts.

If you are using a Redhat based distro, you should have xfs installed already. If not, it is in the XFree86-xfs*rpm. To make sure it runs as one of the default services, either use ntsysv or:

Now xfs will start every time you boot.

*Tags*: ntsysv, chkconfig

http://www.linuxcompatible.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19

I am sure everyone can agree that the standard fonts of XFree are rather crappy. There are many howtos on making them look better, or using other fonts. Here you will find yet another howto, cookbook or whatever you want to call it….

The guys from Redmond have a habit of taking care of the looks quite a bit more than of security and that is actually to our advantage. We can 'borrow' their fonts for use in X. Note that the use of those fonts is only allowed if you have a valid windows license, or if you have downloaded the fonts from their site.

This text assumes you use XFree 4.2.0, that you have a reasonable knowledge of the CLI and *NIX commands, that you have a working setup of X and a reasonably recent distribution. You should also have perl and freetype on your system.

Unpack and/or move (from a windows partition) the ttf files to a directory under /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts, for instance Truetype. The fontserver prefers the filenames to be in lowercase, so use this script on the files (I am reasonably sure the use is selfexplanatory?). Download the program ttmkfdir here. Unpack it and put the file ttmkfdir.linuxbin.glibc2 somewhere where you can run it from, such as /usr/local/bin. Then make a symlink to it called ttmkfdir since I am sure you don't want to type all of that every time you use it Next, download this file and also put it in the /usr/local/bin directory. Once you have all that set up, you cd into the directory with the truetype fonts. Run the command: Code:

http://www.fogdeity.com/eduni/systems/unix/fixcase.html http://www.joerg-pommnitz.de/TrueType/ttmkfdir.tar.gz http://home.c2i.net/dark/mkfontalias.py

The "ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale " command creates fonts.scale, which is basically a list of files with their associated filesizes. The fontsizes, I assume, are ignored, but X needs the list of fonts to be able to offer them.

This next command, mkfontdir, creates fonts.dir which is more or less a copy of fonts.scale as far as I can tell. I am sure it has some purpose, and if you know, by all means, enlighten me

After these commands you should see the following files: fonts.alias, fonts.dir and fonts.scale.

Next thing to do is modifying the various configuration files to reflect the new fonts you have added and make the most of them. Go and find the file XF86Config-4 or XF86Config. If both are found, the -4 version gets used. They can usually be found at /etc/X11 or /usr/X11/lib/X11. Open it and look for the following section: Code: Section "Files"

Modify the lines under that section to look like this:

This will make sure X can find the fonts. By adding the :unscaled at the end of the line, you tell X not to scale the fonts in that directory. Why wouldn't you want to scale them, you ask? Simple: the fonts in that directory are bitmapped fonts, which means that scaling them makes them blocky. Blocky == ugly.

Next, hunt for the file called XftConfig. It can usually be found in the same directory as XF86Config. Look for the line:

Modify the lines there to show: Code:

This will make sure the fontserver will be able to find the fonts as well.

Fire up X again and you should be able to see that you now have the use of Truetype fonts in X.

I am using RH 7.3, OO 1.0.1, and here is my config file as asked for:

I have also been getting errors as Xserver shuts down complaining that certain fonts don't support something.

Now, you have your awesome fonts all blazing away on your screen. Looks awesome, up to the point where you fire up Netscape 4.07 (or so) and all you can recognise in the UI are little boxes where the characters are supposed to be. This is because Netscape expects a specific font and that font only, to display it's stuff. A couple more programs have this problem (VMWare is another I can think of). This perl script makes sure that fonts.alias is created, which should take care of this problem. No more boxes for you!

Next thing I see in the logfile, way at the end, is that it cannot find, or cannot seem to handle the directories /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF and /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype. Double check if they are there and if you have not made any typos in the directory names. Remember that *NIX is casesensative and that truetype and TrueType are two different values. Also double check if you have done the all the steps in the original post for each of these directories that contain TT fonts. The Speedo and the Type1 directory should work all by themselves, but you do need to load the modules for them. To check if you tell X to load it, check the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file for lines saying something like Code:

If the module isn't loaded, it won't handle the corresponding font directory.