Fixed, fixed.

Wed, Jan 14, 2009

On several of my machines, I’ve moved over to using xfce4-terminal instead of xterm. However, my one gripe with it has been that on some machines, I can configure it to use the “fixed” font, and on others, I can’t. The “fixed” font is an antique bitmapped font, but at the right size, it’s absolutely ideal for text editing – I write all my code using it, and set all of my terminals to use it. Every single other (non-decorative) fixed width font I’ve ever seen on my screen is just too squat and fat.

After a bit of digging, I’ve discovered the place to make it all happen: fontconfig. In /etc/fonts/conf.d, there’s a file called 70-no-bitmaps.conf. This filters out all of the bitmap fonts from GTK2 apps that use fontconfig. Renaming this file to 70-no-bitmaps.conf.not-on-your-nelly (pick your own name…) and running dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig gave me all the bitmap fonts back, including my old friend “fixed”. I’m sure that there’s a way of making only “fixed” appear in the list and not the other bitmap fonts, but frankly, I don’t much care right now. :)