Using more fonts with LTSP

The standard and why some things are left out

LTSP comes with a limited number of fonts contained in the ltsp_x_fonts package. These get installed in /opt/ltsp/i386/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts. In order to keep the size of this package to a reasonable size, a number of fonts have been left out. The most obvious ones are the 100 dpi ones, which in a standard Linux distribution amounts to 5.1 MB. And then the fonts are all compressed! However, it's a simple excercise to add the 100 dpi fonts to your system. Most likely they are already installed on your server.

What you can do to fix it easily

The first thing to do is check that the 100 dpi fonts are actually installed. Usually these are to be found in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi. Take a look in that directory to verify that the files are there. You should see a number of files ending in pcf.gz. If not, install them from CD or the net.

In Red Hat, in order to install from the CD, you would use

# rpm -Uvh /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/XFree86-100dpi-fonts*rpm

If you have Debian, try instead

# apt-get install xfonts-100dpi

Now the fonts are in in place, you need to make sure LTSP can make them available to the clients. So copy them to the right place by doing

# cp -r /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/ /opt/ltsp/i386/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/

In order to conserve disk space, you could then remove the files from the original install directory and making a symbolic link from the LTSP location to the original one. (Thanks to Martin Herweg for pointing out that this doesn't work with the symbolic link pointing the other way.)

# rm -rf /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi
# ln -s /opt/ltsp/i386/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi

LTSP already knows about the 100 dpi fonts, they just were not there to use. However, you might want to ensure that the fonts are treated well scalingwise in the case of the pixelised ones. To do that, edit the file /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/rc.setupx (rc.setupx3 if you use the XFree86 version 3 server series), and make the section dealing with the font paths looks like this:

Section "Files"
   RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled/"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
   FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/webfonts/"
EndSection

Note that 100 comes before 75 dpi. The fonts are chosen in the order in which they appear in the list.

That should be it. Now when you restart your clients the new fonts will be used.

To font serve or not to font serve

Try doing the simple steps above before you start using the font server and see if the results are good enough. You will save on bandwidth and in many cases increase application response if you avoid using a font server. There have also been reports of the font server xfs creating problems, locking up the clients, when many work stations are accessing it simultaneously. In order to have TrueType fonts, and you are using Red Hat, you will need the font server, even if XF86 version 4 supports it natively. For information on the use of a font server, please consult the XFree86 Font De-uglification HOWTO at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/index.html (or a friendly mirror close to you).

Ragnar Wisløff
ragnar@wisloff.no
Feb 2002