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How Do I Make Custom Typefaces Available To Apache?

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Probably.Obsolete
Posts: 2
Joined: 2010-01-11 18:10

How Do I Make Custom Typefaces Available To Apache?

#1 Post by Probably.Obsolete »

How Do I Make Custom Typefaces Available to Apache?
(especially .ttf and Adobe type typefaces)

I know that this seems a stupid question - just find the fonts folder and drop the typefaces in there, right? Not quite. - First, I am using 64-bit Debian Lenny on a Xen VPS and secondly there is no system fonts folder.

The image for my account does not come with any font management packages, so it is puzzling how the likes of nano and Apache manage to display text [I am guessing that they are using X11 typefaces with native support and functionality provided by the kernel (?)].

I have found several packages that are concerned with font management, including xfs, xfstt (same as xfs but with true type font support), defoma (whether or not this still has a place with Debian Lenny I don't know - some say fontconfig offers the same functionality, but in a more complex way, and the libft-perl package is not available for Lenny; nor was I able to compile the Font::FreeType perl modules for my system), after X-TT (if I fancy adding Japanese and other ideographics like Chinese and Korean scripts), XFree86 (which was a serious basket to install and which initially refused completely to work on my system, even with /usr/X11R6/bin added to my profile - the trick to getting it working was to copy all the files from /usr/X11R6/bin to /usr/bin and to then symlink the /usr/X11R6/bin directory to /usr/bin), and freetype (not sure just where this fits into things, either, but it does seem to be required by several of the aforementionned packages).

After some searching I found the following about Windows X:

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/doc/debian/ch ... #s-X-intro

...and am now more puzzled than ever because it makes it look like there is no way that XFree86 is suitable for a server setup, even though I have often seen the X11 and X11R6 directories on previous accounts... :? In fact, on running X, it is apparent that XFree86 is most definitely with the desktop user in mind, so why would it be part of a VPS Debian image?

Please, please, please do not mention .eot files!! - As a linux user with linux server I should be able to add typefaces to the server in just the same way as I would add them to a home system and they should then by available for use to the likes of the webserver without any messing around with WEFT or other fiddly substitutes.

As you can see I have already spent a considerable amount of time tearing my hair out over this (so to speak and literally :( ) and am not making much progress, so if there are any sysadmins out there (or desktop users with server know-how :D ) I would love to hear of any solutions to this problem.

John

Probably.Obsolete
Posts: 2
Joined: 2010-01-11 18:10

Re: How Do I Make Custom Typefaces Available To Apache?

#2 Post by Probably.Obsolete »

Well thank-you everyone for the staggering response to this question. - At least now anyone else trying to build a multimedia server solution (especially one requiring the ability to use your own typefaces) on a Linux box knows, like myself, to stick to Fedora or Red Hat (both of which have built-in functionality as a standard for handling true type typefaces that will work on a server). - Forget Ubuntu, too - Debian clone with the same packages and same lack of functionality for all but desktop users.

It does seem a shame, though, that Debian cannot manage to get its act together with something that is, after all, a core functionality issue and no wonder that: a:) it cannot compete with Windows (despite all the hype), b:) even the best efforts of Linux and the fact that it is free are failing to draw people away from the alternatives (I don't buy the laziness argument - my biggest problems in switching to Linux are the lack of available information/documentation, a huge amount of deprecated material, serious lack of clarification over how to integrate things, what those things do, how to make them work or interact with other things, and archaic/non-existant functionality of much that is available), and c:) that many open source applications are having to include font management functionality and typefaces to try and cope with this situation [which is just completely silly (quite aside from equally useless for server users) and would not be necessary if areas like font management were not so woefully inadequate].

Maybe too, that said, Debian users simply no longer know how to use the command line... maybe they should just come out and admit that they are only interested in all things GUI and break away from the server side of things altogether - it would be unfortunate if they were to, but at least that is one area where the distro functionality still seems to be strong (including font management!).

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