On Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 12:51:33PM +0100, Chris Green wrote: > I've been revisiting my "what font to use for xvile on a 4k screen" > issue and, as a result, I have a question. > > Among the fonts listed by xlsfonts there are the following bitstream > terminal ones:- > > -bitstream-terminal-bold-r-normal--0-0-100-100-c-0-dec-dectech > -bitstream-terminal-bold-r-normal--0-0-100-100-c-0-iso8859-1 > -bitstream-terminal-bold-r-normal--18-140-100-100-c-110-dec-dectech > -bitstream-terminal-bold-r-normal--18-140-100-100-c-110-iso8859-1 > -bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--0-0-100-100-c-0-dec-dectech > -bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--0-0-100-100-c-0-iso8859-1 > -bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--18-140-100-100-c-110-dec-dectech > -bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--18-140-100-100-c-110-iso8859-1 > > On my laptop > -bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--18-140-100-100-c-110-iso8859-1 > works very nicely, however it's just a bit too small for my aging eyes > on the 4k screen. > > Do those -bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--0-0-100-100-c-0-iso8859-1 > type entries allow generation of different sizes somehow? If not then > what are they exactly as they don't have any sort of size specified do > they?
I recall seeing some comment that those are used to denote
bitmap fonts which X (or fontconfig?) will (try to) scale.
Looking to check my recollection, I don't see a connection with fontconfig.
The X(7) manpage mentions the 0's:
The xlsfonts program can be used to list all of the fonts that match a
given pattern. With no arguments, it lists all available fonts. This
will usually list the same font at many different sizes. To see just
the base scalable font names, try using one of the following patterns:
-*-*-*-*-*-*-0-0-0-0-*-0-*-*
-*-*-*-*-*-*-0-0-75-75-*-0-*-*
-*-*-*-*-*-*-0-0-100-100-*-0-*-*
To convert one of the resulting names into a font at a specific size,
replace one of the first two zeros with a nonzero value. The field
containing the first zero is for the pixel size; replace it with a spe‐
cific height in pixels to name a font at that size. Alternatively, the
field containing the second zero is for the point size; replace it with
a specific size in decipoints (there are 722.7 decipoints to the inch)
to name a font at that size. The last zero is an average width field,
measured in tenths of pixels; some servers will anamorphically scale if
this value is specified.
and has one other mention of scalable fonts:
Fonts come in various sizes. The X server supports scalable fonts,
meaning it is possible to create a font of arbitrary size from a single
source for the font. The server supports scaling from outline fonts
and bitmap fonts. Scaling from outline fonts usually produces signifi‐
cantly better results than scaling from bitmap fonts.
https://tronche.com/wiki/Howto_specify_X_scalable_fonts_from_the_command_line
goes into more detail, explaining how to configure:
Looking for "x server scalable fonts" finds
https://packages.debian.org/sid/fonts/xfonts-scalable
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/X_Logical_Font_Description
but in a quick check, the bitstream fonts look grainy. I don't see the
"bitstream-terminal" in
/etc/X11/fonts/Type1/xfonts-scalable.scale
but trying some of the patterns in that file, the result looks less grainy
(but also less weight - ymmv)
--
Thomas E. Dickey <[email protected]>
https://invisible-island.net
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