What are X11 built-in fonts?

[gustaf]

My X11 font path lists "built-ins," but doesn't provide any other clues as to where these built-ins might be.

$ xset -q
Font Path:
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/OTF/,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,
  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,
  built-ins

I'm assuming that these are X font server fonts (as opposed to client fonts in the directories), although I could be wrong about this, since I don't completely understand how fonts are configured on OpenBSD.

Is there a command for finding the location of the X11 built-in fonts? Or some other way to determine what/where they are?

Thanks.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

You can view all available fonts along with their location by using fc-list(1).

[jggimi]

Per /usr/xenocara/lib/libXfont2/README.md:

  * builtins - copies of the "fixed" & "cursor" fonts required by the
    X protocol are built into the library so the X server always
    has the fonts it requires to start up.   Accessed via the
    special 'built-ins' entry in the X server font path.  
    Enabled by default, disable via --disable-builtins.

[jggimi]

Looking at the bottom of /usr/xenocara/lib/libXfont2/src/builtins/fonts.c, where these are built, both classes of fonts are 6x13 medium condensed.

[gustaf]

Hi jggimi,

Thanks for pointing me to /usr/xenocara/lib/libXfont2/README.md. From the first paragraph (emphasis mine):

libXfont provides the core of the legacy X11 font system, handling the index 
files (fonts.dir, fonts.alias, fonts.scale), the various font file formats,
and rasterizing them.  It is used by the X display servers (Xorg, Xvfb, etc.) 
and the X Font Server (xfs), but should not be used by normal X11 clients.  
X11 clients access fonts via either the new APIs in libXft, or the legacy 
APIs in libX11.

From reading this and other documentation, and poking around my file system, it seems that built-ins are only part of the libXfont library, and are only used to start the X server. Again, I could be wrong about this.

Do the built-in fonts show up in fc-list(1), xfontsel(1), file system directories, or application font lists, etc?

If the built-ins aren't used by anything after X starts, is it safe to remove "built-ins" from my font path?

[jggimi]

How do you plan on removing them from your font path?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by gustaf

Do the built-in fonts show up in fc-list(1), xfontsel(1)

The fc-list(1) command only lists fonts known to fontconfig, which does not include bitmap fonts; xfontsel(1) does list bitmap fonts and should have fixed listed as one of the families ("fmly").

Originally Posted by jggimi

How do you plan on removing them from your font path?

This command in the relevant desktop startup file (eg, ~/.xsession) should work:

xset -fp built-ins

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by gustaf

Do the built-in fonts show up in fc-list(1), xfontsel(1), file system directories, or application font lists, etc?

The fonts(7) man page explains that there are two separate font systems: Xft and the core font system. They are not compatible with each other.