Not true. You can get font servers that support font types not supported by the X server, such as TrueType fonts, and can thus use those fonts in X. This is most certainly a benefit for people who have many such fonts!

brion vibber

> Even with only one machine there are benefits to using a
> fontserver.

[explanation snipped]

On the other hand, when you use a font server, you end up with *two* copies of the bitmaps for the glyphs (one in the font server, one in the X server). This effect can be allieviated somewhat by turning on delayed glyph loading in the X server.

Another poster mentioned that a font server can serve fonts that the X server does not know how to handle. For this purpose, it might be better to add a new backend to `xc/lib/font' so that both the X server and the font server know how to use the new font format. (But then, I'm biased.)

I've been experimenting with gfs, the Gallium font server
> that comes with Applixware.  It hands TrueType fonts, and though oddly
> enough Applixware itself doesn't seem to recognize it, StarOffice
> does.

I had just the opposite results. Setting up fonts in StarOffice is a nightmare.

I'm using Xfstt to display truetype fonts in X and I recompiled ghostscript to use them for printing. The Gallium font server made it simple to set up Applixware to use truetype fonts.

> How exactly did you do that? I added my TrueType fonts to the
> Gallium font server, but Applix refuses to use them. The
> administrator's manual describes the fontmap.dir file,
>

I might have taken the long way around here to get truetype fonts working in X, Applix, and ghostscript — but here goes.

First I want to point out where to find Xfstt : http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/

A good wed site with information on installing fonts in Applix: http://www.users.fast.net/~rodsmith/fonts.html

And another interesting site: http://www-sef.usc.edu/~vibber/linux/TrueType.html

The first thing I did was get hold of some truetype fonts. I just copied the fonts from my Win95 partition over to Linux and placed them in a directory I called: ttfonts /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ttfonts

There is also a list of web sites to download truetype fonts listed in the FAQ that comes with Xfstt.

cd over to /usr and create a link for Xfstt to find the fonts:

ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ttfonts  ttfonts

Xfstt looks for fonts in /usr/ttfonts but I like to keep my font directories grouped together under /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/

Build and install Xfstt I untared Xfstt under /tmp but it doesn't matter where it's done. When you run "make install", one of the things it does is run

xfstt --sync

xfstt —sync generates two files in the truetype font directory: ttinfo.dir and ttname.dir I made a copy of ttname.dir and called it fonts.scale fonts.scale is one continous line of descriptions of all the fonts in the directory. I edit my new fonts.scale file placing each font discription on it's own line. The font discriptions need to be edited. As an example, change a description like :

Nimrod Bold nimb____ttf -ttf-nimrod-bold-r-normal-tt

to

Nimrod Bold nimb____ttf -ttf-nimrod-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1

Count the total number of font discriptions and enter that number on the first line of the file (by itself). You can make a copy of this file calling it fonts.dir or you can run the program mkfontdir.

Edit the file (if your using XFree86) called XF86Config in /etc/X11/ and change the line after fontpath to something like :

"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled,inet/127.0.0.1:7100,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"

Before running startx start-up xfstt. I found that the fonts in Java's SwingSet example look the right size if I start xfstt as follows:

xfstt --res 72 &

If you follow the instructions for installing fonts in Applix using Rod Smith's instructions at http://www.users.fast.net/~rodsmith/fonts.html under the heading "FontTastic Font Installation" all should go well. I believe this are the same instructions in Fontastic Help.

The easiest way to make these fonts available to ghostscript is to set the environment variable in .bashrc

export GS_FONTPATH=/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts,/usr/X11R6/X11/fonts/ttfonts

Ghostscript will run faster if you edit it's Fontmap file but I haven't noticed any undesirable delays.

As a test, I used a font in Applix's editor that was only available as a truetype font and sent it out to the printer.

Brian Chamberlain @ibm.net

> I'll have to admit, this font business has got me stumped.

Ditto. Like you I've been trying out xfstt. Promising, but on my 133MHz Pentium with 64MB it "freezes" the entire machine for a few seconds every fifteen seconds or so. gfs doesn't do this, but (v1.3, at least) can only take one directory as its catalogue, and anyways seems to need a fonts.dir entry (which xfstt doesn't) for every font, which I have no idea how to generate for TrueType fonts as mkfontdir doesn't. I managed to add TrueType fonts to StarOffice after a lot of grief. I know ghostscript handles TrueType fonts but it needs to be recompiled, and I don't mind recompiling in general but it's a huge program and I like the convenience of having it already built in RPM too much.

> I'm not sure what it means to have ghostscript doing TrueType fonts...
> Does that mean that if your document uses a font which happens to be
> TrueType, that gs can render it?

It's really as simple as 1, 2, 3 ….

First:

In order to use a truetype font in Applix I first need to make it available to the X server. (Xfstt)

Second:

I need to install the font in Applix (FontTastic)

Third:

Ghostcript needs to have a font description in order to convert the font for printing. Type 1 and truetype fonts are described differently and ghostscript can be compiled to work with truetype descriptions.

The same goes for type 1 fonts. The fonts that come with XFree86 are not scalable. Sure, you can print a postscript document through ghostscript but It must look like crap when viewed in ghostview. How can you create a document in Applix using the fonts that ghostscript knows about if there not available to the X server? How can ghostscript convert a font for printing if it has no description of that font?

> I can't get the X Font Server "xfs" (on RedHat 6.0) working to deliver
> fonts to my X-Terminal, how to configure it ?

You didn't indicate what kind of X terminal you're using. But here are some hints:

If you have problems with 'xset fp+' and a known working fontserver, you may have an X server running on that X terminal that is too old. Fontserver capability wasn't added until 1992, if I remember correctly.

> > Well here's another in my long list of screwups with XFree 4.0.1... I
> > now cannot start my computer because it's freezing:
> >
> > Starting X font server: xfsFontCacheInitialize: hi=1048576 lo=786432
> > bal=70
> >
> > And it goes no further...

>well....glad to know i'm not the only one having this problem.  Please,
>can ANYONE help?  I have even tried using the emergency shell, but it
>won't mount the filesystem so I can modify conf files.

At the lilo prompt:

linux 3

should you get in with a nice command line interface, and you can do what you want. Did you upgrade from something with a font server? You probably don't need it at all now.

There is an easy way to find about the "xfs" startup file:

(It is true that Xfree 86 4.0.1 comes with an integrated xfs, hence you may not require a separate xfs)