Description of Problem: When I put gzipped pcf fonts into my ~/.fonts directory, they are not found. If I simply gunzip them, then they are found. For example, I want to use the old-style "fixed" family of fonts for my terminal windows; specifically, the "10x20" font. I copied /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/* into ~/.fonts and restarted X (to make sure all applications really restarted) and no new fonts were available; in particular, the "Fixed" family didn't show up in the font selector for gnome-terminal. When I ungzipped them, then the "Fixed" family showed up in the font selector and I was able to use the fonts. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Xft-1.9.1.020811.1151-2 How Reproducible: Always
Oops, that should have read: "...I copied /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/10x20* into ~/.fonts..." I didn't copy in the whole directory, just the fonts I wanted. Not that this is likely to make a difference...
This is a known limitation of FreeType ... it wouldn't actually be hard to add support for gzip'ed streams, but it isn't a good idea, because seaking to find the glyphs you need is very inefficienct. The long-term direction for bitmap fonts it to go to TrueType fonts with only embedded bitmaps ... they are almost as compact as gzip'ed PCF, more efficient, and a better/richer font format.