Stumped about installing & using Xorg fonts 9x15, 10x20 ?

soapman

I have used pkg to install the following:

xorg-fonts-miscbitmaps and
font-misc-misc

When I type the following:

urxvt -fn 9x15 (gives an error)
unable to load base fontset, please specify a valid one using -fn, aborting

but, then I try:

urxvt -fn 6x13 (no error)

Why is there this difference? I guess, I might be missing something?
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
9x15 misc is my favorite terminal font.

Thanks

soapman
( Linux user )

vimanuelt

soapman
You're getting the error because urxvt can't find the 9x15 font alias, even though 6x13 works. This usually means the 9x15 font isn't installed, registered, or properly mapped in the X font path.

Run this to check if 9x15 is available: xlsfonts | grep 9x15

If nothing is returned, the font is missing from the current font path.

Make sure the required fonts are installed: sudo pkg install xorg-fonts-miscbitmaps font-misc-misc

Then add the font path:
xset +fp /usr/local/share/fonts/misc
xset fp rehash

Try running urxvt with the full font name:
urxvt -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1"

If that works, the issue is just that the 9x15 alias isn't resolving. Add the full font to your .Xresources:
URxvt.font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1

Then reload with: xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

soapman

(yes, thanks for the help. On my end, it just wasn't resolving the alias "9x15".

Your suggestion of placing the full name into my .Xresources file worked.
I do want to mention, that the following worked.. (created an alias):

alias aterm='urxvt -fn "xft:Misc Fixed"'

I used this too, and also I could place this syntax into a *.desktop file. 🙂