From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20021003 Description of problem: With non-Xft2 apps (gimp, QT apps when anti-aliasing is disabled in qtconfig...) I can't use truetype fonts even though xlsfonts shows them. In xfontsel they are available on the list but when selected nothing appears. How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Install some truetype fonts (I have them in /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType) 2.Add that directory to /etc/X11/fs/config 3.service xfs stop 4.service xfs start 5.startx 6.run xfontsel 7.select one of the installed truetype fonts Actual Results: Nothing appears on the font display section of xfontsel (it isn't even redrawn as remains of the menus aren't cleared). Expected Results: It should display a preview of the selected font as it did in Red Hat 7.3.
If make a symlink for every truetype font in /usr/share/fonts/TrueType in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF and remove /usr/share/fonts/TrueType from /etc/X11/fs/config and restart xfs, I can now use truetype fonts normally. I still think that this is a bug although there is a easy workaround, I should be able to put the fonts in any directory that xfs could find.
Your "workaround" is working around some misconfiguration or somesuch rather than working around a bug. Truetype fonts, when _properly_ installed and configured work just fine. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to help people properly install and configure fonts in bugzilla, which is a bug tracker and not a tech support forum. Please use the Red Hat mailing lists for help installing and configuring ttf fonts properly. Also read the Font HOWTO's which explain various common gotchas.
As I said, ttf fonts are working properly now, both with Xft2 and old X font system (of course I could have added /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF to /etc/fonts/fonts.conf). My point was that in RedHat 7.3 all it took was to add /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType to xfs's configuration (it was already there in fact) an put the ttf's on that dir. In 8.0 altough xfs finds the fonts, builds the fonts.dir and fonts.scale files for them, which appear fine when I look at them, they can't be used in non Xft2 apps. Normal X font system knows about the directory but can't find the ttf files. I wasn't asking for help on how to install ttf fonts... PS: My install of 8.0 wasn't an upgrade nor did I change xfs's configuration more that just adding that directory at the end of the list.
The 2 font systems, core server fonts via xfs font server, and the new Xft client side fonts via Xft2/fontconfig, are completely and totally independant. There is _no_ way to install and configure fonts and have them magically appear in both font infrastructures. You _must_ configure fonts twice in order for all applications to see them properly. The configuration of server side fonts (using xfs) is 100% identical to the way it always has been in Red Hat Linux. This has not changed at all in any way. It very much _does_ work too. Xft2/fontconfig client side fonts are configured with fontconfig. Upon doing a fresh installation of Red Hat Linux, fonts are preconfigured for xfs ONLY for fonts that come WITH Red Hat Linux. Any fonts that a user installs in their system, it is the responsibility of the font rpm packager to follow similar practice to that of Red Hat font packages in order for the fonts to be visible in applications properly, or it is the responsibility of the user installing the fonts to do so. In the case of xfs, the font path _MUST_ be configured in the xfs config file, the proper commands executed to create fonts.dir and fonts.scale, and the xfs font server and X server must be restarted. This process is fairly well documented in various howto's and other documentation. I'm not going to repeat it here. Nonetheless, ttf fonts do work, and do work properly in Red Hat Linux 8.0, both using xfs, and using Xft2, and this bug report is as such NOTABUG. User inability to configure something does not constitute it being a bug. I can change the resolution to WORKSFORME if you like, or perhaps WORKSFOREVERYONEBUTYOU.
First, please note that I'm accepting this as NOTABUG. However, I think that there is some miscommunication here since I said that the problem was that the name of the directory mattered in whether fonts worked or not, but I've tried to fiddle around with the configuration again (merely adding a directory to xfs config and restarting it) and found out that now only some fonts that work out of /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF do not work out of the directory added to xfs config when I expected all of them to work or none of them to work. I accept that this may be my problem, therefore NOTABUG it is.