X and fonts clarification

Eliatamby · 2006-01-19 09:01:50

Ok, I've done alot of research, and I'm comfortable in linux. However, X still remains a bit of a mysterious beast as far as I'm concerned. I've read the wiki's and read the man pages, but have some questions regarding X and fonts in particular:

The font paths in xorg.conf are only used to specify the type of fonts available to xterm etc right?. What other programs use these paths? Is this the Xcore font system?

Now the Xft system utilizes the font modules that X can load, like freetype, type1, speedo etc. Does this mean if I have a ttf font in my ~/.fonts/ directory, but only the speedo font module loaded, then the ttf font would not be availble to X? What if I added a font path in xorg.conf pointing to ~/.fonts/ ? Would the ttf font then be available?

Say I have the freetype module loaded, but my Font path contains on the misc folder. Does this mean a program not utilising Xft will not see the ttf fonts?

Also, isn't it pointless using freetype and type1 together?

Finally, in Arch, where do you get the speedo module from?

Thanks

phrakture · 2006-01-19 16:50:07

Oooh, I love this stuff!

Eliatamby wrote:

The font paths in xorg.conf are only used to specify the type of fonts available to xterm etc right?. What other programs use these paths? Is this the Xcore font system?

Correct. The paths specified in xorg.conf are only for old-style fonts. These are specified with XFLD (X Font Logical Descriptor, IIRC) names of the form -something-*-*-1-2-3-4-*-*-iso1234567-. These are all handled by the modules loaded by X (such as speedo, bitmap, and freetype).

Eliatamby wrote:

Now the Xft system utilizes the font modules that X can load, like freetype, type1, speedo etc. Does this mean if I have a ttf font in my ~/.fonts/ directory, but only the speedo font module loaded, then the ttf font would not be availble to X? What if I added a font path in xorg.conf pointing to ~/.fonts/ ? Would the ttf font then be available?

This is where it differs. Xft uses FontConfig to load fonts. An Xft enabled app is 100% seperate from the modules loaded in xorg.conf. When an Xft font is loaded, FontConfig reads the font cache (created by running fc-cache) and the proper config files to match the requested name.

Eliatamby wrote:

Say I have the freetype module loaded, but my Font path contains on the misc folder. Does this mean a program not utilising Xft will not see the ttf fonts?

See above - font paths and Xft fonts are unrelated.

Eliatamby wrote:

Also, isn't it pointless using freetype and type1 together?

Probably

Eliatamby wrote:

Finally, in Arch, where do you get the speedo module from?

Umm, it should be installed with Xorg

I wrote this ages ago: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XOr … figuration

Eliatamby · 2006-01-19 22:11:00

Thanks phrakture, although in Xorg 7.0 it seems the speedo module is not installed (for me at least)

elasticdog · 2006-01-20 00:55:29

Doesn't <code>freetype</code> cover <code>speedo</code> anyway? Thus, <code>speedo</code> shouldn't be necessary?

phrakture · 2006-01-20 03:03:28

elasticdog wrote:

Doesn't <code>freetype</code> cover <code>speedo</code> anyway? Thus, <code>speedo</code> shouldn't be necessary?

Actually, not that I recall - but then again, I don't think anyone uses speedo fonts regularly.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-01-19 09:01:50

X and fonts clarification

#2 2006-01-19 16:50:07

Re: X and fonts clarification

#3 2006-01-19 22:11:00

Re: X and fonts clarification

#4 2006-01-20 00:55:29

Re: X and fonts clarification

#5 2006-01-20 03:03:28

Re: X and fonts clarification

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