updating one's font path .. & adding a man to manuals

[daemonfowl]

Hi everyone !

I'm sorry again to ask such a newbie question .. seems everlasting ..
When I install/compile new fonts , there is a post-install message that come afterwards & I seem to always miss the tweak :

You may wish to update your font path for /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ubuntu

so how would I update my font path ?

a similar situation when I install some package and as there is a resulting new man for that package .. I'm asked ro add the related manual to local manuals ..

[IdOp]

so how would I update my font path ?

If X won't find the font path when it boots, you can add it to xorg.conf. But that will only take effect next time you start X. You can also update/manage font paths on-the-fly (meaning, while X is already running, not working on an insect or anything) by using the various fontpath options (fp) of xset(1).

[daemonfowl]

Hi IdOp ! Thanks , do you mean :

xset +fp /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ubuntu
xset fp rehash

is enough ? No need to go add some line somewhere (xorg.conf .. ) ?

[IdOp]

I think that would about do it, however:

1) If you are adding an entirely new directory, I'm not sure if the rehash is needed or not. It wouldn't hurt, of course, but possibly X will read a new directory anyway ... I don't know how that logic is handled. You could experiment and see.

2) If you do use xset, it will only stay in effect for the current X session. If you leave X and later come back, the changes will be gone. To handle that you could put the FontPaths in xorg.conf if you have one. If you don't want an xorg.conf, however, then you could put the xset statements into your .xinitrc file so they'll execute every time you startx.

[daemonfowl]

Thanks you IdOp !
I never had to configure X on this box so I don't have any resulting xorg.conf file .. the .xinitrc way seems working as I can see newly installed fonts in firefox' fonts preferences .. :-)

[daemonfowl]

If I put those xset statements in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc instead of my ./xinitrc would it be adequate ?
( & I still don't know how to make use of xset/mkfontdir/ .. etc in situations like when I wanna add some foreign fonts that are not included in ports .. )

[jggimi]

If I put those xset statements in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc instead of my ./xinitrc would it be adequate ?

When you modify a system supplied configuration file, you must manage upgrades to it via sysmerge(8).

[shep]

Most fonts are automatically updated. You can check in an application that allows you to select fonts like firefox > edit > preferences. Alternatively you can see the loaded fonts in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log

If your newly installed fonts do not show up you can make an entry in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d as described here

Be advised that the font paths in OpenBSD are different - copying and pasting the entry from the Slitaz Linux page will not work.

[daemonfowl]

Thanks jggimi ! Thanks shep !
Yes I can see newly installed fonts ..
lines from a useful link :
http://www.openbsd.org/faq/truetype.html

Fonts installed as a package from the ports collection are registered automatically to the fontconfig system. Fontconfig uses the file /etc/fonts/fonts.conf for its main system-wide configuration, but since this file will be replaced on subsequent X upgrades, /etc/fonts/local.conf should be used instead to manage system-wide changes. Fontconfig searches for fonts in all sub-directories of the directories listed in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. So there's no need to edit this file when new fonts are added in those hierarchies.