[gentoo-user] Please explain X fonts?

[gentoo-user] Please explain X fonts?

[Walter Dnes]

  I ran into this issue just now setting up X on my ancient netbook that
I've just re-installed on.  It's been an ongoing issue of mine that I've
solved with an ugly hack.  I'd like to know "the right way" of doing it.
I have a ~/.xinitrc file like so...

#!/bin/bash
[[ -f ~/.Xresources ]] && xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources /usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry 50x9+0+0 -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12 &
/usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry +0+0 -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12 &
exec /usr/bin/icewm > ~/.icewm.log 2>&1

  Some time ago, somebody decided to deprecate iso8859-1 fonts.  And
when I run startx, the text console comes up with

========================================================================
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font 'lucidasanstypewriter'
/usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font 'lucidasanstypewriter'
Warning: Cannot convert string "lucidasanstypewriter" to type FontStruct
Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Error: Aborting: no font found

Warning: Cannot convert string "lucidasanstypewriter" to type FontStruct
Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Warning: Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font
Error: Aborting: no font found
========================================================================

  xterms come up with some dinky little font.  It's bad enough on a 24
in 1920x1080 monitor.  On an 11" 1366x768 netbook, it's unreadable.
When I do a control-right-click on an xterm to manipulate fonts, the
xterm crashes.

  One of the nice things about having multiple machines, is that I still
had another machine with the old fonts.  For a few years, I've preserved
a copy of /usr/share/fonts from that machine as fonts_do_not_delete.  So
each time fonts are "updated" on my machines, I rename /usr/share/fonts
to /usr/share/fonts.borken and copy the fonts_do_not_delete directory as
/usr/share/fonts.

  OK, so whats supposed to be "the right way" to get working xterms with
lucidasanstypewriter-12?

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Please explain X fonts?

[Matti Nykyri]

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> On Mar 27, 2015, at 4:15, "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> 
> #!/bin/bash
> [[ -f ~/.Xresources ]] && xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources /usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry 50x9+0+0 -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12 &
> /usr/bin/xterm -bg black -fg cyan -geometry +0+0 -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12 &
> exec /usr/bin/icewm > ~/.icewm.log 2>&1
> 
>  Some time ago, somebody decided to deprecate iso8859-1 fonts.  And
> when I run startx, the text console comes up with

Why not use some new TTF? Put the config to ~/Xdefaults:
XTerm*faceName: Liberation Mono XTerm*faceSize: 12

>  xterms come up with some dinky little font.  It's bad enough on a 24
> in 1920x1080 monitor.  On an 11" 1366x768 netbook, it's unreadable.
> When I do a control-right-click on an xterm to manipulate fonts, the
> xterm crashes.

X server abjusts font sizes according to the DPI value. The DPI value it calculates might be wrong though: bad EDID most likely. Set the DPI value in you Xorg.conf file to make the fonts in constant size.

>  One of the nice things about having multiple machines, is that I still
> had another machine with the old fonts.  For a few years, I've preserved
> a copy of /usr/share/fonts from that machine as fonts_do_not_delete.  So
> each time fonts are "updated" on my machines, I rename /usr/share/fonts
> to /usr/share/fonts.borken and copy the fonts_do_not_delete directory as
> /usr/share/fonts.

CONFIG_PROTECT the directory or make the fonts immutable so they don't get removed. chattr +i

>  OK, so whats supposed to be "the right way" to get working xterms with
> lucidasanstypewriter-12?

-- 
-Matti

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[gentoo-user] Re: Please explain X fonts?

[walt]

On 03/26/2015 07:15 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:

<snip all questions I can't answer>

> When I do a control-right-click on an xterm to manipulate fonts, the
> xterm crashes.

I had the same problem once.  IIRC, strace showed me that xterm was trying
to load the "default" font but there was no value set for "default".

Somehow I managed to set the "default" font, but I can't remember how it
did it.  Maybe someone else can supply details?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Please explain X fonts?

[lee]

walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:

> On 03/26/2015 07:15 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>
> <snip all questions I can't answer>
>
>> When I do a control-right-click on an xterm to manipulate fonts, the
>> xterm crashes.
>
> I had the same problem once.  IIRC, strace showed me that xterm was trying
> to load the "default" font but there was no value set for "default".
>
> Somehow I managed to set the "default" font, but I can't remember how it
> did it.  Maybe someone else can supply details?

My xterm shows that it's using the default font.  I would guess that the
default might be set through .Xresources or through command line
parameters.


There's not much explanation here, the following just works for me:


AFAIK, the font names are case sensitive.  For .Xresources:


xterm*FaceName:		xft:Source Code Pro:pixelsize=14:style=Regular


You can also use 'xterm -fa "LucidaTypewriter-16"', see man xterm.

Support for truetype must be compiled into xterm (x11-terms/xterm
truetype).  If you use fvwm with tt-fonts, also use 'truetype'.


As to fonts, I highly recommend "Source Code Pro" and "Source Sans Pro".
They finally resolved my long search for good fonts.  Unfortunately,
they don't come with Gentoo.  I copied them over from a Fedora
installation, so you might be able to extract them from their RPMs.

I haven't been able to create them from their sources, though.  It
requires some special program which didn't work.  Maybe someone knows
how to do that?


And for emacs, in .Xressources:


Emacs.FontBackend: xft


and in .emacs:


(custom-set-faces
 ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(default ((t (:inherit nil :stipple nil :background "black" :foreground "green" :inverse-video nil :box nil :strike-through nil :overline nil :underline nil :slant normal :weight normal :height 120 :width normal :foundry "adobe" :family "Source Code Pro"))))
 '(font-lock-comment-delimiter-face ((t (:inherit font-lock-comment-face :foreground "deep sky blue"))))
 '(font-lock-comment-face ((t (:foreground "goldenrod"))))
 '(font-lock-warning-face ((t (:inherit error :foreground "DarkSlateGray1")))))


with:


app-editors/emacs X athena Xaw3d xft -gtk -motif tookit-scroll-bars gif imagemagick jpeg png svg tiff xpm gnutls gzip-el inotify libxml2 wide-int


To show which fonts are installed, there's 'fc-list'.  When you want
user specific fonts, put them into ~/.config/fonts/ and run 'fc-cache'.


-- 
Again we must be afraid of speaking of daemons for fear that daemons
might swallow us.  Finally, this fear has become reasonable.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Please explain X fonts?

[Urs Schütz]

On 03/29/15 06:23, lee wrote:
> walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 03/26/2015 07:15 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>
>> <snip all questions I can't answer>
>>
>
> As to fonts, I highly recommend "Source Code Pro" and "Source Sans Pro".
> They finally resolved my long search for good fonts.  Unfortunately,
> they don't come with Gentoo.  I copied them over from a Fedora
> installation, so you might be able to extract them from their RPMs.
 >
> I haven't been able to create them from their sources, though.  It
> requires some special program which didn't work.  Maybe someone knows
> how to do that?
>

No need to extract them, they come with Gentoo unstable

  $ eix source-pro
[I] media-fonts/source-pro
      Available versions:  (~)20121216^bs (~)20130316^bs (~)20141211^bs 
{X cjk}
      Installed versions:  20141211^bs(17:20:12 03/29/15)(X -cjk)
      Homepage:            http://adobe-fonts.github.io/source-sans-pro 
http://adobe-fonts.github.io/source-serif-pro 
http://adobe-fonts.github.io/source-code-pro
      Description:         Adobe's open source typeface family designed 
for UI environments

<snip>

Urs

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Please explain X fonts?

[lee]

Urs Schütz <u.schutz@bluewin.ch> writes:

> On 03/29/15 06:23, lee wrote:
>> walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 03/26/2015 07:15 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip all questions I can't answer>
>>>
>>
>> As to fonts, I highly recommend "Source Code Pro" and "Source Sans Pro".
>> They finally resolved my long search for good fonts.  Unfortunately,
>> they don't come with Gentoo.  I copied them over from a Fedora
>> installation, so you might be able to extract them from their RPMs.
>>
>> I haven't been able to create them from their sources, though.  It
>> requires some special program which didn't work.  Maybe someone knows
>> how to do that?
>>
>
> No need to extract them, they come with Gentoo unstable
>
>  $ eix source-pro
> [I] media-fonts/source-pro

Cool, thank you, I'll try that tomorrow!

Is that both fonts or only Source Code Pro?


-- 
Again we must be afraid of speaking of daemons for fear that daemons
might swallow us.  Finally, this fear has become reasonable.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Please explain X fonts?

[Urs Schütz]

On 04/01/15 21:03, lee wrote:
> Urs Schütz <u.schutz@bluewin.ch> writes:
>
>> On 03/29/15 06:23, lee wrote:
>>> walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On 03/26/2015 07:15 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>>>>
>>>> <snip all questions I can't answer>
>>>>
>>>
>>> As to fonts, I highly recommend "Source Code Pro" and "Source Sans Pro".
>>> They finally resolved my long search for good fonts.  Unfortunately,
>>> they don't come with Gentoo.  I copied them over from a Fedora
>>> installation, so you might be able to extract them from their RPMs.
>>>
>>> I haven't been able to create them from their sources, though.  It
>>> requires some special program which didn't work.  Maybe someone knows
>>> how to do that?
>>>
>>
>> No need to extract them, they come with Gentoo unstable
>>
>>   $ eix source-pro
>> [I] media-fonts/source-pro
>
> Cool, thank you, I'll try that tomorrow!
>
> Is that both fonts or only Source Code Pro?
>
>

It is both fonts, in different weights.