Figuring Out the Font System on Linux Desktops?

koreth asks: "Last year I switched to Debian sarge on my office desktop machine. For the most part it's been great, but I can't seem to wrap my brain around fonts. For example, my favorite programming font is Sheldon Narrow. After running it through a few conversion tools and copying it to various font directories, I was able to start using it in xterm. But no sign of it in Konsole, despite running it through KDE's font installer tool. A few times I've installed new fonts that appear in the font lists of GNOME apps but not KDE apps or vice versa, and it's unclear to me how either environment's fonts interact with what I see when I run 'xlsfonts'. I have yet to find any documentation describing how either GNOME or KDE decides which fonts it likes. And then there's Debian's 'defoma', which seems to interact with everything somehow. Are there any good resources out there for learning what's going on under the hood of a modern Linux desktop environment's font subsystem?"

Comments

Its easy.

[Jukashi]

Head - meet Wall
Repeat.

Re:Dots Per Inch...

[thedave]

I recommend that X do the exact same thing. The X server should act like DPI is 96 at all times. It would also help if the interfaces to select fonts by pixel size were not treated like second-class citizens.

That would be an extraordinary step backwards!

Correct pixel density is essential for almost everyone trying to do serious graphics or publishing work.

Setting the pixel density correctly allows you to render things on-screen at the exact same size and proportioons as the printed work. This is crucial to graphic artists, publishers, et al. Setting it to 96 DPI all the time, would be miserable in that situation (and would make many things completely illegible on my 1400x1050 flatpanel, 126x123 DPI).

Incidentally, programs such as The Gimp, Photoshop, Inkscape, OpenOffice, Scribus, deal with sizes almost exclusively in length units of measure such as inches, millimeters and points, for graphical elements as well as type elements.

Most allow you to change the units of the ruler between in, mm, picas and points.

It would be nice if they would add pixels (font size multiplied by correct DPI), and allow the font pickers the same luxury. It would avoid much confusion.

Also, this and color calibration of the things that Macintosh had right from the very beginning; which is why they are so entrenched in the publishing industry.