Dusko Pijetlovic

My personal notes where I store things I find interesting or might need in the future.

Simple X11 Setup - Notes

31 Aug 2025 » x11, xorg, xterm, config, dotfiles, howto, font, freebsd, utf8, unicode, unix, cli, terminal, shell, tip

Word cloud: font, typography, kerning, bitmap, XLFD, monospaced, fixed, fixed-pitch, fixed-width, non-proportional, proportional, variable-pitch, glyph, XLFD, FreeType, Xft, fontconfig, .otf, .ttf, .ttc, .bdf, Unicode, UTF-8, xterm, terminal, shell, CLI

My Notes from How to configure X11 in a simple way by Eugene Andrienko

(Posted on 2025-07-24. Retrieved on 2025-08-31.)

My Primary Concerns

  • High DPI (HighDPI or HiDPI) display
  • Fonts
    • Shell, terminal - XTerm
    • Proportional vs. monospace(d) vs. bitmap (pixel fonts) vs. fixed bitmap vs. TrueType (Xft) [1]
    • Unicode
  • Brightness

Laptop - Main Screen (Built-In Display)

High DPI (HighDPI or HiDPI) Display

How to setup X server to operate with HighDPI display?

Laptop (and screen/display) used for this setup: Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen3

  • Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen3
  • Screen: 14.0” WUXGA (1920 x 1200), IPS, Anti-Glare, Touch, 100%sRGB, 500 nits, ePrivacy Filter
  • Display size: 14 inch (diagonal)
  • Display aspect ratio: 16:10
  • Resolution (Pixel format): 1920 (H) x 1200 (V)

  • Active area: 301mm (H) x 188mm (V)

  • CPU: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1280P

  • RAM: 32 GB

  • OS: FreeBSD 14
  • Shell: csh
  • Window Manager: fvwm3 1.1.0

Starting X (X Window System, X11)

% exec xinit  # OR: exec startx

Brightness

Add the following two lines to /boot/loader.conf:

acpi_ibm_load="YES"
acpi_video_load="YES"

Current brightness:

% backlight
brightness: 32

Change brightness:

% backlight 80

% pkg search gammy
gammy-0.9.64_1  Adaptive screen brightness and temperature for Windows and Unix

% sudo pkg install gammy

Start gammy:

% gammy

DPI

% xrandr | wc -l
      47
 
% xrandr --verbose | wc -l
     440

% xrandr | grep "connected primary"
eDP-1 connected primary 1920x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 301mm x 188mm

So, with active area dimensions 301mm x 188mm, my /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-intel.conf file looks like this:

% cat /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-intel.conf
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "MainMonitor"
    Option      "Primary" "true"
    DisplaySize 301 188
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "intel"
    Option      "Monitor-eDP-1"   "MainMonitor"
    Option      "Monitor-HDMI-1"  "ExternalMonitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "MainScreen"
    Device     "intel"
    Monitor    "MainMonitor"
EndSection

Before the change, DPI on this system was set to 110:

% grep "Xft.dpi" ~/.Xresources
Xft.dpi:    110

% xrdb -query | grep dpi 
Xft.dpi:        110

What should be DPI for this laptop’s screen?

To calculate, use a DPI calculator/PPI calculator; for example:

https://www.sven.de/dpi/

For this laptop’s monitor:

  • Horizontal resolution: 1920 pixels
  • Vertical resolution: 1200 pixels
  • Diagonal: 14 inches
  • Aspect ratio: 16:10

The result is:

Display size:
11.87" × 7.42" = 88.09in (30.15cm × 18.85cm = 568.32cm) at 
161.73 PPI, 0.1571mm dot pitch, 26155 PPI

That is: DPI is 161.73

Edit the ~/.Xresources file, and change it from 110 to 161.73.

% grep "Xft.dpi" ~/.Xresources
Xft.dpi:    161.73

After that, run xrdb(1) to reload the .Xresources and replace current settings:

% xrdb ~/.Xresources

DPI is now set to 161.73:

% xrdb -query | grep dpi
Xft.dpi:        161.73

Fonts for Use with XTerm

In general, for xterm(1), I prefer using bitmapped (old-style) fixed width fonts when I’m using an external monitor, while for a a laptop, I like better OpenType (OTF, new-style) and TrueType fonts (TTF, new-style).

From Install TTF font on xterm (cygwin):

TrueType fonts (TTF) with X are usually done using fontconfig. One of its features is that it looks by default in the .fonts directory under your home directory. You would use fc-list to list the fonts which are available, and use them with the -fa (family name) and -fs (font size) options of xterm. (while xfd has a corresponding -fa option, xfontsel does not).

xset on the other hand, looks for bitmap fonts which are referenced using the XLFD naming convention. You would use xlsfonts for listing those, and the -fn option of xterm.

Fonts for Use with XTerm on This Laptop - Main Screen (Built-In Display)

In order of preference:

0xProto - OpenType Font (OTF), TrueType Font (TTF)

For this laptop, I prefer 0xProto OpenType/TrueType font, so I start xterm with the -fa option (which corresponds to xterm’s faceName resource, and is used for selecting fonts from the FreeType library), and I also use the font size (-fs option) of 12:

% xterm -fa 0xProto -fs 12

To make it permanent, add the following two lines to your ~/.Xresources file:

XTerm*faceName: 0xProto
XTerm*faceSize: 12

Then, to re-read your Xresources file, and throw away your old resources, run:

% xrdb ~/.Xresources

X Core Fonts (Bitmapped, XLFD) for XTerm on This Laptop

As mentioned before, for xterm on the laptop I prefer TrueType and OpenType (new-style) fonts. However, when I sometimes choose to use bitmapped fonts (X core fonts, or old-style font), I like -adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--24-240-75-75-m-150-iso10646-1, so I start xterm with the -fn option.

% xterm -fn "-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--24-240-75-75-m-150-iso10646-1"

To make it permanent, add the following line to your ~/.Xresources file:

XTerm*font: -adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--24-240-75-75-m-150-iso10646-1

Then, to re-read your Xresources file, and throw away your old resources, run:

% xrdb ~/.Xresources

Other X core (bitmapped, XLFD) fonts that look somewhat good on this laptop:

% xterm -fn "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans-34-240-100-100-m-200-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--34-240-100-100-m-200-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans-24-240-75-75-m-140-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans-26-190-100-100-m-159-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-ibm-courier-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans-20-140-100-100-m-120-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-bitstream-terminal-medium-r-normal--18-140-100-100-c-110-iso8859-1"

% xterm -fa '' -fn "-sun-gallant-medium-r-normal--22-220-75-75-c-120-iso10646-1"

For the last font (Gallant Font), you have to install it from https://github.com/NanoBillion/gallant.

Searching for Bitmap Fonts (X Core Fonts, XLFD Fonts)

XLFD: 14 fields. Field names are separated by dashes ‘-‘, and an XLFD font name starts with a dash ‘-‘):

-fndry-fmly-wght-slant-swdth-adstyl-pxlsz-ptsz-resx-resy-spc-avgwdth-rgstry-encdng

For additional searches for an X core font (bitmapped, old-style font), I often use the following XLFD fields.

* wght (Weight): medium
* slant (Slant): r for roman (or upright)
* swdth (Nominal width): normal, condensed
* pxlsz (height, in pixels, of the type - Also called "body size")
* ptsz (height, in points, of the type)
* resx (horizontal screen resolution the font was designed for, in DPI 
* resy (vertical screen resolution the font was designed for, in DPI) 
* spc (the kind of spacing used by the font (its *escapement* class); either 'p' (a *proportional* font containing characters with varied spacing), 'm' (a *monospaced* font containing characters with constant spacing), or 'c' (a *character cell* font containing characters with constant spacing and constant height)
* avgwdth (average width of the characters used in the font, in 1/10th pixel units) 

% xlsfonts | wc -l
   23232
 
% xlsfonts -fn "*" | wc -l
   23232

For example, for the search below with the xlsfonts(1) program: fmly (family): fixed, pxlsz (body size in pixels): 18.

% xlsfonts -fn "*-fixed-*-*-*-*-18-*" | less

This is good on an external monitor, but too small for this laptop:

% xterm -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--18-120-100-100-c-90-iso10646-1"

Additional searches:

% xlsfonts -fn "*-fixed-*-*-*-*-24-*" | wc -l
% xlsfonts -fn "*-fixed-*-*-*-*-24-*" | less

% xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-medium-r-normal-*-24-*" | wc -l
% xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-medium-r-normal-*-24-*" | less

The following search: spacing (11th field: spc): ‘m’ for monospaced - with medium weight (3rd field: wgth) and upright (‘r’ for roman) slant (4th field: slant).

% xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-*-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-*" | wc -l
% xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-*-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-*" | less

The following search: spacing (11th field: spc): ‘c’ for character cell - with medium weight (3rd field: wgth) and upright (‘r’ for roman) slant (4th field: slant).

% xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-medium-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-c-*" | wc -l
% xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-medium-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-c-*" | less

TODO - Clean this section

For use in X (X11, X Window System), there are two types of fonts:

  • X core fonts (old-style bitmapped fixed width fonts and Type1 fonts)
  • OpenType/TrueType (newer) fonts

There are two kinds of fonts in X11: server-side (drawn by the X server, shown in xlsfonts(1)) and client-side (drawn by the application, shown in fc-list(1).

https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=xterm&manpath=FreeBSD+10.2-RELEASE+and+Ports

However (even though xfd accepts a “-fa” option to denote FreeType fonts), xfontsel has not been similarly extended.

As a workaround, you may try:

fc-list :scalable=true:spacing=mono: family

to find a list of scalable fixed-pitch fonts which may be used for the faceName resource value.

XTerm’s Default Font

The default font for xterm is an alias fixed.

For more about finding out what it resolves to on your system, see [2].

In short (TLDR):

% xset -q | grep -A1 "Font Path"
Font Path:
  /usr/local/share/fonts/ ---- snip ----

% ls -1 /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.*
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.dir
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.scale

NOTE: With xlsfonts(1):

% xlsfonts -l fixed
DIR  MIN  MAX EXIST DFLT PROP ASC DESC NAME
-->    0  255  some    0   23  11    2 -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--0-0-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1
-->    0  255  some    0   23  11    2 -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-->    0  255  some    0   23  11    2 -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-->    0  255  some    0   23  11    2 -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-koi8-r

Continuing - with exploring the fonts.alias and fonts.dir files.

% grep ^fixed /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias 
fixed        -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

So, on my system, fixed alias resolves to -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1.

NOTE: Note that fixed is aliased specifically to the ISO 8859-1 version of the font, not to the Unicode version (which would be ISO 10646-1).

To find out that font’s file:

% grep -- "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1" /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.dir 
6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
6x13-ISO8859-10.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-10
6x13-ISO8859-11.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-11
6x13-ISO8859-13.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-13
6x13-ISO8859-14.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-14
6x13-ISO8859-15.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
6x13-ISO8859-16.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-16

% ls /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz

So, on my system, fixed alias resolves to:

-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

and that font’s file is:

/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz

Unicode Support

If there is iso10646-1 in XLFD font name: it supports Unicode.

-misc-fixed-medium-o-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

vs.

If there is iso8859-1 in XLFD font name: it does not support Unicode.

-misc-fixed-medium-o-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

Laptop with an External Monitor - TODO

When I use an external monitor with the laptop.

On laptop:

% ./mirror_ext_monitor_xrandr.sh

% cat mirror_ext_monitor_xrandr.sh 
#!/bin/sh

# Based on 
#   <https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xrandr>

intern=eDP-1
extern=HDMI-1 

xrandr --output "$intern" --primary --auto --output "$extern" --same-as "$intern" --auto

Fonts for Use with XTerm on an External Monitor

X Core (Bitmapped, Old-Style) Fonts

In contrast to the laptop, with an external monitor, for xterm I prefer bitmapped fonts (X Core fonts, aka old-style fonts).

% xterm -fn "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans-14-140-75-75-m-90-iso106
46-1"

% xterm -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--18-120-100-100-c-90-iso8859-1"

% xterm -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1"

% xterm -fn "-sun-gallant-medium-r-normal--22-220-75-75-c-120-iso10646-1"
# (You need to install it manually from:
# https://github.com/NanoBillion/gallant)

TrueType and OpenType (New-Style) Fonts

With Fontconfig.

Good but too big:

% xterm -fa 'Monospace' -fs 14

Not so good:

% xterm -fa 'Monospace' -fs 12
% xterm -fa 'Monospace' -fs 11

To list monospaced fonts (with using Fontconfig’s fc-list(1)):

% fc-list | cut -f2 -d: | sort -u | grep -i Mono

TODO:

The Unicode HOWTO: Display setup

TODO:

TODO:

% pkg search terminus-font
terminus-font-4.49.1_1   Terminus Font - a clean fixed width font

% pkg search --regex ^terminus
terminus-font-4.49.1_1   Terminus Font - a clean fixed width font
terminus-ttf-4.49.3      Terminus Font - a clean fixed width font (TTF version)
 
% pkg rquery %dn terminus-font
mkfontscale
fontconfig

% xterm -report-fonts > xterm-report-fonts

% awk '{print $1}' xterm-report-fonts | grep -n "^f[A-Z]"
2:fNorm:
29:fBold:
56:fWide:
83:fWBold:
111:fNorm:
138:fBold:
165:fWide:
192:fWBold:

% sed -n 2p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts 
        fNorm: fixed

% sed -n 29p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fBold: fixed

% sed -n 56p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

% sed -n 83p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

% sed -n 111p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

% sed -n 138p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

% sed -n 165p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

% sed -n 192p /tmp/xterm-report-fonts
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

References

References - HiDPI and X11 (Xorg) Setup

References - Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 3 (Intel) Specifications, details

Reference - DPI Calculator / PPI Calculator

For the laptop from this post, enter:

  • Horizontal resolution: 1920 pixels
  • Vertical resolution: 1200 pixels
  • Diagonal: 14 inches (35.56cm)
  • Aspect ratio (it was already prepopulated and was not editable): 16:10

Result:

Display size: 11.87” × 7.42” = 88.09in² (30.15cm × 18.85cm = 568.32cm²) at 161.73 PPI (pixels per inch), 0.1571mm dot pitch, 26155 PPI² (pixels per square inch)

References - Fractional scaling, font size, DPI (font scaling)

References - Some people had issues with T14s’ screen

  • Regretting Buying T14s

    Got a used T14s gen 1 and am kind of regretting the purchase, mainly because of the screen quality.

    First few days of using it gave me such eye strain and dizziness, I seriously considered going back to a MacBook, even though I don’t really like the OS. Watching videos are fine but somehow text appears fuzzy, how has this not been mentioned more online?

References - Larger XTerm fonts on HiDPI displays, Unicode, Bitmap

  • Larger XTerm fonts on HIDPI displays

  • PS8: vncdesk https://github.com/feklee/vncdesk is a good tool to use to scale up a single window: – How to use Xfig on high DPI screen?

  • How to increase the default font size? - FreeBSD Forums

  • Courier New-like font with Unicode support?

  • Per-application window scaling in Xorg for high DPI display

  • XTERM - Terminal emulator for the X Window System - Thomas E. Dickey’s software development projects – invisible-island.net

    Thomas Dickey is the maintainer/developer of xterm, the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. This page gives some background and pointers to xterm resources.

    From XTerm FAQ:

    What is XTerm?

    From the manual page:

    The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It provides DEC VT102/VT220 and selected features from higher-level terminals such as VT320/VT420/VT520 (VTxxx). It also provides Tektronix 4014 emulation for programs that cannot use the window system directly. If the underlying operating system supports terminal resizing capabilities (for example, the SIGWINCH signal in systems derived from 4.3bsd), xterm will use the facilities to notify programs running in the window whenever it is resized.

    That is, xterm (pronounced “eks-term”) is a specific program, not a generic item. It is the standard X terminal emulator program.

    [ . . . ]

    As a stylistic convention, the capitalized form is “XTerm”, which corresponds to the X resource class name. Similarly, uxterm becomes “UXTerm”.

    The bold font is ugly

    XTerm lets you directly specify one bold font, which is assumed to correspond to the default font. Older versions of xterm make a fake bold font for the other choices via the fonts menu by drawing the characters offset by one pixel. I modified xterm to ask the font server for a bold font that corresponds to each font (other than the default one). Usually that works well. However, sometimes the font server gives a poor match. Xterm checks for differences in the alignment and size, but the font server may give incorrect information about the font size. The scaled bitmap font feature gives poor results for the smaller fonts. In your X server configuration file, that can be fixed by disabling the feature, e.g., by appending “:unscaled” to the path:

    FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath    "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"

    You can suppress xterm’s overstriking for bold fonts using the alwaysBoldMode and related resources. However, rendering ugly bold fonts is a “feature” of the font server. In particular, the TrueType interface provides less ability to the client for determining if a particular font supports a bold form.

  • Hidden gems of XTerm

    One important note for users with bitmap fonts: Always select sizes which the fonts are prepared for. If you don’t stick with this rule, you will end up with slow and ugly resampled fonts which is something you don’t want to see. In my case, make sure the sizes match installed fonts (the directory can differ in you distribution - this is Fedora 19):

    grep medium /usr/share/fonts/terminus/fonts.dir | grep iso10646
ter-x12n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--12-120-72-72-c-60-iso10646-1
ter-x14n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1
ter-x16n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1
ter-x18n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--18-180-72-72-c-100-iso10646-1
ter-x20n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso10646-1
ter-x22n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--22-220-72-72-c-110-iso10646-1
ter-x24n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--24-240-72-72-c-120-iso10646-1
ter-x28n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--28-280-72-72-c-140-iso10646-1
ter-x32n.pcf.gz -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--32-320-72-72-c-160-iso10646-1

    As you can see sizes for the Terminus font are 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 28 and 32. Note there are keyboard shortcuts for font size, more about them later on.

    [ . . . ]

  • Electronic Font Open Laboratory - /efont/

    Distributions

    • efont-unicode-bdf/ The Bitmap Font for Unicode.
    • shinonome-font/ BDF bitmap font by Yasuyuki Furukawa. Contains 12, 14 and 16 dot fonts.
    • efont-japanese-bdf-collection/ The archive which includes Japanese (i.e. JISX0201, 0208 and 0213) and Roman (ISO8859-1) Fonts of some sizes.
    • efont-serif/ The modifiable and distributable outline font which is based on Roman type and Mincho type. We are planning to distribute it in TrueType and CID Type-1 formats. The development started on November 29, 2000. Designers and testers are wanted.
    • bdfresize/ Bdfresize is a command to magnify or reduce fonts which are described with the standard BDF format. The original author Hiroto Kagotani was pleased to hand over its maintenance to the /efont/.
  • Fixed (typeface) – misc-fixed – a collection of monospace bitmap fonts distributed with the X Window System – Wikipedia (Retrieved on Aug 31, 2025.)

    misc-fixed is a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System. It is a set of independent bitmap fonts which—apart from all being sans-serif fonts—cannot be described as belonging to a single font family. The misc-fixed fonts were the first fonts available for the X Window System. Their individual origin is not attributed, but it is likely that many of them were created in the early or mid 1980s as part of MIT’s Project Athena, or at its industrial partner, DEC. The misc-fixed fonts are in the public domain.

    The individual fonts in the collection have a short name that matches their respective pixel dimensions, plus a letter that indicates a bold or oblique variant. They can also be accessed using their (much longer) X Logical Font Description string:

    5x7 	-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--7-70-75-75-C-50-ISO10646-1
5x8 	-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--8-80-75-75-C-50-ISO10646-1
[ . . . ]

    The “6x13” font is usually also available under the alias “fixed”, a font name that is expected to be available on every X server.

    The fonts originally covered only the ASCII repertoire, and were in the early 1990s extended to cover all characters in ISO 8859-1. In 1997, Markus Kuhn initiated and headed a project to extend the misc-fixed fonts to as large a subset of Unicode/ISO 10646 as is feasible for each of the available font sizes This project’s goal was to get Linux developers interested in abandoning the 1990s dominant ISO 8859-1 encoding, in favour of using UTF-8 instead, which happened indeed within a few years.

    [ . . . ]

    The 6x13, 8x13, 9x15, 9x18, and 10x20 fonts cover a much larger repertoire, that covers in addition the comprehensive CEN MES-3A European Unicode 3.2 subset, the International Phonetic Alphabet, Armenian, Georgian, Thai, Yiddish, all Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic characters, all mathematical symbols (including the entire TeX repertoire), APL, Braille, Runes, and much more. 9x15 and 10x20 also cover Ethiopic.

    The misc-fixed fonts have been much less commonly used since support for scalable outline font formats such as Type 1, TrueType and OpenType has become available for X. However, they are still commonly used with terminal emulators, such as XTerm, and as a fallback font for the many Unicode characters not yet found in common outline fonts.

    The fonts are distributed in the BDF format and are currently maintained by Markus Kuhn.

    [ . . . ]

    External links

  • GNU Free Font’s Free Mono - Monospace font which is legible and relatively complete in terms of Unicode coverage.

References - The difference between PPI and DPI

References - Miscellaneous

Footnotes

[1] A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters and spacings have different widths.

The font resource is a standard resource setting for the X Toolkit, which deals only with XLFD (X Logical Font Description) Conventions bitmap, while faceName was added long after, in applications such as xterm to provide a way to specify TrueType fonts (actually whatever fontconfig supports, which can include bitmap fonts).

From XLFD (X Logical Font Description) Conventions:

  • Monospaced = fixed pitch
    • A font whose logical character widths are constant (that is, every glyph in the font has the same logical width).
  • Proportional = variable pitch
    • A font whose logical character widths vary for each glyph.
  • CharCell
    • A monospaced font that follows the standard typewriter character cell model (that is, the glyphs of the font can be modeled by X clients as “boxes” of the same width and height that are imaged side-by-side to form text strings or top-to-bottom to form text lines). By definition, all glyphs have the same logical character width, and no glyphs have “ink” outside of the character cell. There is no kerning.

From Fonts in X11R6.8, Juliusz Chroboczek, jch@pps.jussieu.fr, 25 March 2004, Section 3. Fonts included with X11R6.8

Fonts included with X11R6.8

3.1. Standard bitmap fonts

The Sample Implementation of X11 (SI) comes with a large number of bitmap fonts, including the `fixed’ family, and bitmap versions of Courier, Times, Helvetica and some members of the Lucida family. In the SI, these fonts are provided in the ISO 8859-1 encoding (ISO Latin Western-European).

In X11R6.8, a number of these fonts are provided in Unicode-encoded font files instead. At build time, these fonts are split into font files encoded according to legacy encodings, a process which allows us to provide the standard fonts in a number of regional encodings with no duplication of work.

For example, the font file

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/6x13.bdf

with XLFD

-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

is a Unicode-encoded version of the standard `fixed’ font with added support for the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, IPA and other scripts plus numerous technical symbols.

[2] About XTerm’s Default Font

Default Font for XTerm

With default (xterm started with just xterm, that is, without using any of the xterm options):

% xterm

In the new xterm window, run:

% xtermcontrol --get-font
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

Confirm/check with xterm(1):

% xterm -report-fonts | wc -l
     218

% xterm -report-fonts | grep -- "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1"
     fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
     fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

As a contrast, next example shows xterm with a font selected from the FreeType library (new-style font), as opposed to a bitmap (old-style) font (which are specified with XLFD notation).

% xterm -fa mono -fs 12

In the new xterm window, run:

% xtermcontrol --get-font
mono

Ask the xprop(1) utility, using its -font argument, to show the properties of the font named fixed.

% xprop -font fixed | grep -w FONT
FONT = -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1

% xprop -font fixed
---- snip ----
FOUNDRY = Misc
FAMILY_NAME = Fixed
WEIGHT_NAME = Medium
SLANT = R
---- snip ----
PIXEL_SIZE = 13
POINT_SIZE = 120
RESOLUTION_X = 75
RESOLUTION_Y = 75
SPACING = C
AVERAGE_WIDTH = 60
CHARSET_REGISTRY = ISO8859
CHARSET_ENCODING = 1
---- snip ----
FONT = -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1
---- snip ----

From the man page for xterm(1):

   -fn font
           This option specifies the font to be used for displaying normal
           text.  The corresponding resource name is font.  The resource
           value default is fixed.

Note “The resource value (for the -fn option) default is fixed”.

From:

% xprop -font fixed
---- snip ----
FONT = -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1

Also:

% xterm -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]" | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed
       fNorm: fixed
       fBold: fixed
       fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
       fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
       fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
       fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
       fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
       fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

% xterm -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed | grep -- "-13-120-" | wc -l
       6
 
% xterm -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed | grep -- "-13-120-" 
       fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
       fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
       fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
       fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
       fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
       fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

With xterm use its -xrm option specifies a resource string to be used.

Here, use the reportFonts resource.

From the man page for xterm(1):

   reportFonts (class ReportFonts)
           If true, xterm will print to the standard output a summary of
           each font's metrics (size, number of glyphs, etc.), as it loads
           them.  The default is “false”.

% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" | wc -l
     218

% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" | grep "f[A-Z]" | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed 
        fNorm: fixed
        fBold: fixed
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
        fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

With xterm, explicitly load font fixed (which is actually an alias for the font that is loaded).

% xterm -xrm "*font:fixed"

Next, with xterm, load font fixed and use the resource string reportFonts to print to the standard output a summary of that font’s metrics (size, number of glyphs, etc.), as xterm loads them.

% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" -xrm "*font:fixed" | wc -l
     218
 
% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" -xrm "*font:fixed" | grep "f[A-Z]" | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" -xrm "*font:fixed" | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed | wc -l
       8
 
% xterm -xrm "*reportFonts: true" -xrm "*font:fixed" | grep "f[A-Z]" | grep -i fixed 
        fNorm: fixed
        fBold: fixed
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
        fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

With the -report-xres option for xterm:

% xterm -report-xres | wc -l
     261

% xterm -report-xres | grep -E "font[[:space:]]"
font                    : fixed

% xterm -report-xres | grep -E "font[^[:alnum:]]"
font                    : fixed

% xterm -report-xres | grep -E "font[[:>:]]"
font                    : fixed

% xterm -report-xres
---- snip ----
font                    : fixed
font1                   : nil2
font2                   : 5x7
font3                   : 6x10
font4                   : 7x13
font5                   : 9x15
font6                   : 10x20
font7                   : -adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--24-240-75-75-m-150-iso10646-1
fontDoublesize          : true
fontWarnings            : 1
---- snip ----
utf8                    : default
utf8Fonts               : default
utf8Latin1              : false
---- snip ----

Use xset(1) to find the Font Path.

% xset -q | wc -l
      27

% xset -q | grep -A1 "Font Path"
Font Path:
  /usr/local/share/fonts/ . . . 

% ls -lh /usr/local/share/fonts/ | wc -l
      32
 
% ls -lh /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/ | wc -l
     413
 
% ls /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts*
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.scale
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.dir

% grep ^fixed /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.alias
fixed        -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

% grep -- "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1" /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/fonts.dir 
6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
6x13-ISO8859-10.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-10
6x13-ISO8859-11.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-11
6x13-ISO8859-13.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-13
6x13-ISO8859-14.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-14
6x13-ISO8859-15.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
6x13-ISO8859-16.pcf.gz -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-16

% ls /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz                      
/usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz

% mkdir /tmp/6x13check
 
% cd /tmp/6x13check
 
% pwd
/tmp/6x13check
 
% cp -i /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz .
 
% gunzip 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
 
% ls
6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf
 
% file 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf 
6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf: X11 Portable Compiled Font data, bit: MSB, byte: MSB first
 
% wc -l 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf
      10 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf
 
% strings 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf | wc -l
     191

% strings 6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf | grep -i "misc-fixed"
-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1

% xlsfonts | grep -i -- "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1" | wc -l
      15
 
% xlsfonts | grep -i -- "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-10
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-10
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-11
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-11
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-13
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-13
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-14
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-14
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-15
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-16
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-16

% xlsfonts -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1" | wc -l
       6
 
% xlsfonts -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

% xlsfonts -h
xlsfonts: unrecognized argument -h

usage:  xlsfonts [-options] [-fn pattern]
where options include:
    -l[l[l]]                 give long info about each font
---- snip ----
 
% xlsfonts -l -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1" | wc -l
       7
 
% xlsfonts -ll -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1" | wc -l
     228
 
% xlsfonts -lll -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1" | wc -l
    1770

With xfontsel(1) application, to work with only a subset of the fonts, specify -pattern option followed by a partially or fully qualified font name; so -pattern "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1*" will select that subset of fonts which contain that string somewhere in their font name.

% xfontsel -pattern "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1*"

This returned “6 names match”.

% xfd -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1"

From the man page for xfd(1):

DESCRIPTION
       The xfd utility creates a window containing the name of the font being
       displayed, a row of command buttons, several lines of text for
       displaying character metrics, and a grid containing one glyph per cell.

In this case, xfd(1) created a window containing this name of the font displayed:

-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1

% xterm -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1" -report-fonts | grep "f[A-Z]"
        fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
        fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fNorm: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
        fBold: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
        fWide: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1
        fWBold: -Misc-Fixed-medium-R-*-*-13-120-75-75-C-120-ISO10646-1

app-defaults

% locate "app-defaults" | grep -i xterm
/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/KOI8RXTerm
/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/KOI8RXTerm-color
/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/UXTerm
/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/UXTerm-color
/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm
/usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm-color
 
% wc -l /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm
     272 /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm

% grep -v \! /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm | wc -l
     149

% grep "font:" /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm
*SimpleMenu*menuLabel.font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font:  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
 
% grep "font:" /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm | grep fixed
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font:  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

% grep -i font /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm | grep -i default
*fontMenu*fontdefault*Label:    Default
! The default fixed font and font2-font6 are commonly aliased to iso106461 (Unicode)
!                                         fontdefault/SmeBSB
!                                         fontdefault/SmeBSB
! xterm can switch at runtime between bitmap (default) and TrueType fonts.

appres

% sudo pkg install appres
appres-1.0.7    Program to list application's resources

% pkg info appres
appres-1.0.7
---- snip ----

Description    :
The appres program prints the resources seen by an application
(or subhierarchy of an application) with the specified class and
instance names.  It can be used to determine which resources a 
particular program will load.

% appres XTerm xterm | wc -l
     175

% appres XTerm xterm
---- snip ----

% appres XTerm xterm | grep "font:"
*SimpleMenu*menuLabel.font:     -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font:  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

% appres XTerm xterm | grep "font:" | grep fixed
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font:  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

find-xterm-fonts Perl script

Using find-xterm-fonts Perl script from the maintainer of XTerm, Thomas E. Dickey:

% fetch https://invisible-island.net/datafiles/release/misc-scripts.tar.gz

% tar xf misc-scripts.tar.gz
 
% ls
misc-scripts-20250722   misc-scripts.tar.gz

% cd misc-scripts-20250722/

% ls
CHANGES                         MANIFEST
check-manpage                   nm_cmp
classpath                       no-local
compare-terminfo                nodot
count-nroff                     noenv
diffstat2css                    nolocale
find-xterm-fonts                noterm
---- snip ----

% file find-xterm-fonts
find-xterm-fonts: Perl script text executable

% ./find-xterm-fonts
# opening /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/XTerm
---- snip ----
        *VT100.utf8Fonts.font:  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
---- snip ----
# opening /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/UXTerm
        *VT100.font:    -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
---- snip ----
# opening /usr/local/lib/X11/app-defaults/KOI8RXTerm
        *VT100.font:    -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-koi8-r
---- snip ---- 

Font-files used:
---- snip ----
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13.pcf.gz
        -> UXTerm*VT100.font
        -> XTerm*VT100.utf8Fonts.font
---- snip ----

No font-files missing

Packages providing font-files:

font-adobe-75dpi-1.0.3_4
        /usr/local/share/fonts/75dpi/courR24.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/75dpi/helvB12-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
font-misc-misc-1.1.2_4
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/10x20-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/10x20-KOI8-R.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/10x20.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/5x7-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/5x8-KOI8-R.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/5x8.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x10-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13-KOI8-R.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/6x13.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/7x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/7x14-KOI8-R.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/7x14.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/8x13-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/8x13-KOI8-R.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/8x13.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/9x15-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/9x18-KOI8-R.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/9x18.pcf.gz
        /usr/local/share/fonts/misc/nil2.pcf.gz

Appendix

Useful Commands and Examples for Exploring Hardware

% sudo dmidecode | wc -l
     975

% sudo dmidecode | grep "Version: ThinkPad"
      Version: ThinkPad T14s Gen 3

% sudo dmidecode | grep "SKU Number: LENOVO"
      SKU Number: LENOVO_MT_21BR_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad T14s Gen 3

% sudo dmidecode | sed -n 608,616p
System Information
      Manufacturer: LENOVO
      Product Name: 21BR000NUS
      Version: ThinkPad T14s Gen 3
      Serial Number: [redacted]
      UUID: [redacted]
      Wake-up Type: Power Switch
      SKU Number: LENOVO_MT_21BR_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad T14s Gen 3
      Family: ThinkPad T14s Gen 3

% sudo dmidecode | grep Intel | grep Version
      Version: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1280P

% sudo dmidecode | sed -n 517,521p
Processor Information
      Socket Designation: U3E1
      Type: Central Processor
      Family: Core i7
      Manufacturer: Intel(R) Corporation

% sudo dmidecode | grep i7 | grep Version
        Version: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1280P

% sysctl hw.physmem
hw.physmem: 34007212032

% printf %s\\n "34359738368 / 1024 / 1024" | bc
32768
 
% printf %s\\n "34359738368 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024" | bc
32

% dmesg | grep "real memory"
real memory  = 34359738368 (32768 MB)

% pciconf -lv | grep -B3 display
vgapci0@pci0:0:2:0:	class=0x030000 rev=0x0c hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x46a6 subvendor=0x17aa subdevice=0x22ee
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]'
    class      = display
 
% xdpyinfo | grep "number of screens"
number of screens:    1

% xdpyinfo | grep -B2 resolution
screen #0:
  dimensions:    1920x1200 pixels (294x184 millimeters)
  resolution:    166x166 dots per inch

% ls /dev/backlight/
backlight0              intel_backlight0

Useful Tools for Using and Exploring Fonts

X Tools for X Core Fonts - For XLFD (aka: Bitmapped fonts) - xlsfonts, xfontsel, xfd

XLFD: X Logical Font Description (as opposed to Fontconfig and FreeType libraries).

If on your FreeBSD system these three packages (xfontsel, xlsfonts, xfd) were not installed when you installed the X (xorg) metaport and other X (xorg) -related metaports and ports, you’ll need to install them.

To list X (xorg) and X (xorg) -related metaports and ports:

% pkg info | grep ^xorg-
xorg-7.7_3                   X.Org complete distribution metaport
xorg-apps-7.7_4              X.org apps meta-port
xorg-docs-1.7.3,1            X.org documentation files
xorg-drivers-7.7_7           X.org drivers meta-port
xorg-fonts-7.7_1             X.org fonts meta-port
xorg-fonts-100dpi-7.7        X.Org 100dpi bitmap fonts
xorg-fonts-75dpi-7.7         X.Org 75dpi bitmap fonts
xorg-fonts-cyrillic-7.7      X.Org Cyrillic bitmap fonts
xorg-fonts-miscbitmaps-7.7   X.Org miscellaneous bitmap fonts
xorg-fonts-truetype-7.7_1    X.Org TrueType fonts
xorg-fonts-type1-7.7         X.Org Type1 fonts
xorg-libraries-7.7_6         X.org libraries meta-port
xorg-server-21.1.18,1        X.Org X server and related programs

On my system they were not installed so I had to install them.

xlsfonts

% pkg search xlsfonts
xlsfonts-1.0.8    Server font list displayer for X

% sudo pkg install xlsfonts

% xlsfonts -h
xlsfonts: unrecognized argument -h

usage:  xlsfonts [-options] [-fn pattern]
where options include:
 -l[l[l]]             give long info about each font
 -m                   give character min and max bounds
 -C                   force columns
 -1                   force single column
 -u                   keep output unsorted
 -o                   use OpenFont/QueryFont instead of ListFonts
 -w width             maximum width for multiple columns
 -n columns           number of columns if multi column
 -display displayname X server to contact
 -d displayname       (alias for -display displayname)
 -v                   print program version

NOTE: xlsfonts(1) deals only with XLFD 14-part names.

Chapter Fonts of The Linux Cookbook (Second Edition, by Michael Stutz) has a table describing the meaning of each field of X font names in XLFD (X Logical Font Description):

X Fonts - The Linux Cookbook, Second Edition, by Michael Stutz

% xlsfonts | wc -l
   23232

% xlsfonts "*" | wc -l
   23232

When the searched font doesn’t exist on the system:

% xlsfonts "mono"
xlsfonts: pattern "mono" unmatched

When there is a match for the given pattern:

% xlsfonts "*mono*" | wc -l
    6962

% xlsfonts "*mono*" | head
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-ascii-0
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-cns11643-1
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-cns11643-2
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-cns11643-3
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-gb18030.2000-0
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-gb2312.1980-0
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-jisx0201.1976-0
-adobe-noto sans mono cjk jp-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-jisx0208.1983-0

It’s case insensitive:

% xlsfonts -fn "*fixed*" | wc -l
    1014
 
% xlsfonts -fn "*Fixed*" | wc -l
    1014
 
% xlsfonts -fn "*FIXED*" | wc -l
    1014

% xlsfonts | wc -l
   23232

% xlsfonts | grep -i monospaced | wc -l
       0
 
% xlsfonts | grep -i monospace | wc -l
       0

% xlsfonts | grep -i fixed | wc -l
    1014

When searched for the Fixed (typeface) - aka misc-fixed fonts:

% xlsfonts -fn "*fixed*" | grep -i misc | wc -l
     970
 
% xlsfonts -fn "*fixed*" | grep -v misc | wc -l
      44

% xlsfonts -fn "*misc-fixed*" | wc -l
     970

% xlsfonts -fn "*misc-fixed*" | grep -i "\-Misc\-Fixed\-Medium\-R\-Normal\-\-7\-70\-75\-75\-C\-50\-ISO10646\-1"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
 
% xlsfonts -fn "*misc-fixed*" | grep -n -i "\-Misc\-Fixed\-Medium\-R\-Normal\-\-7\-70\-75\-75\-C\-50\-ISO10646\-1"
758:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
759:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1

Or:

% xlsfonts -fn "*misc-fixed*" | grep -i -- "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--7-70-75-75-C-50-ISO10646-1"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1

% xlsfonts -fn "*misc-fixed*" | grep -n -i -- "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--7-70-75-75-C-50-ISO10646-1"
758:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
759:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1

% xlsfonts -fn "*-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--7-70-75-75-C-50-ISO10646-1*"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1

You don’t have to use the -fn option:

% xlsfonts "*-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--7-70-75-75-C-50-ISO10646-1*"
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1

% xlsfonts "*misc-fixed*" | grep -n -i "\-Misc\-Fixed\-Medium\-R\-Normal\-\-7\-70\-75\-75\-C\-50\-ISO10646\-1"
758:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
759:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--7-70-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1

xfontsel

% pkg search --regex ^xfontsel
xfontsel-1.1.1    Point and click selection of X11 font names

$ pkg search --regex --full ^xfontsel | sed -n '/Description/,$p'
Description    :
This package contains xfontsel, an application which provides a simple way to
display fonts known to your X server.

% sudo pkg install xfontsel

% xfontsel -help
usage:  xfontsel [-options ...] -fn font

where options include:
    -display dpy           X server to contact
    -geometry geom         size and location of window
    -pattern fontspec      font name pattern to match against
    -print                 print selected font name on exit
    -sample string         sample text to use for 1-byte fonts
    -sample16 string       sample text to use for 2-byte fonts
    -sampleUCS string      sample text to use for ISO10646 fonts
    -scaled                use scaled instances of fonts
plus any standard toolkit options

NOTE: xfontsel(1) deals only with XLFD 14-part names.

To work with only a subset of the fonts, specify -pattern option followed by a partially or fully qualified font name; e.g., -pattern "*medium*" will select that subset of fonts which contain the string medium somewhere in their font name.

When the searched font doesn’t exist on the system:

$ xfontsel -fn nonexistingfont
Warning: Cannot convert string "nonexistingfont" to type FontStruct

$ xfontsel -fn mono
Warning: Cannot convert string "mono" to type FontStruct

% xfontsel -pattern 'mono' -print

#  The  xfontsel(1)  window displayed:
#    no names match

% xfontsel -pattern '*mono*' -print
        
#  On my system, the  xfontsel(1)  window displayed:
#    12 names match

#  After quitting xfontsel(1):
-*-b612 mono-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*$

xfd

% sudo pkg install xfd 

% pkg info xfd
---- snip ----
Comment        : Display all characters in an X font
---- snip ----
Description    :
This package contains xfd, an applications used for displying all
characters in an X font.

NOTE: In addition to -fn option (which specifies the core X server side font to be displayed), the xfd(1) utility also supports -fa option (which specifies an Xft font to be displayed).

% xfd -fa gallant

#   xfd(1) loaded Noto Sans-12:style=Regular
#   WHY?
#   This is why:

% fc-match
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

% fc-match gallant
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

% xfd -fn fixed

Loaded:

-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1

% xfontsel -print -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-SemiCondensed--13-120-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1"

Output:

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*% 

% xfontsel -print -fn fixed

Output:

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*%

Fontconfig Tools (fc-list, fc-match, fc-conflist) - For OpenType, TrueType Fonts

Print a list of all the configuration files processed by Fontconfig.

% fc-conflist

The output is a ‘-‘ or ‘+’ depending on whether the file is ignored or processed, a space, the file’s path, a colon and space, and the description from the file or ‘No description’ if none is present.

The order of files looks like how fontconfig actually processes them except one containing <include> element.

% fc-list | wc -l
    1895

% sudo pkg install xscreensaver

% fc-list | wc -l
    1900

% fc-list | grep -i gallant
/usr/local/share/fonts/xscreensaver/gallant12x22.ttf: gallant12x22:style=Medium

% xfd -fa gallant12x22

#   xfd(1) loaded the correct font, that is:
#     gallant12x22-12:style=Medium

% xfd -fn gallant12x22
Warning: Cannot convert string "gallant12x22" to type FontStruct
xfd:  no font to display

% fc-list | wc -l
    1895

% fc-list :scalable=true:spacing=mono:family | wc -l
     175

% fc-list :scalable=true:spacing=mono:family | less
---- snip ----

% fc-list :scalable=true:spacing=mono:family | grep mono | wc -l
      60

% fc-list :scalable=true:spacing=mono:family | grep mono | less
---- snip ----

% fc-match | wc -l
       1

% fc-match
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

% fc-match SomeFont
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"
 
% fc-match "Some Font"
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

% fc-match 0xProto
0xProto-Regular.otf: "0xProto" "Regular"
 
% fc-match 0xPROTO
0xProto-Regular.otf: "0xProto" "Regular"

% fc-match '*0xProto*'
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"
 
% fc-match "*0xProto*"
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

% fc-list | grep 0xProto
/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.otf: 0xProto:style=Regular
/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.ttf: 0xProto:style=Regular

% find ~/.fonts -iname '*0xProto*'
/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.otf
/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.ttf

% fc-list | grep -i 0xProto
/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.otf: 0xProto:style=Regular
/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.ttf: 0xProto:style=Regular

% fc-list -v 0xProto | grep -i file
        file: "/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.ttf"(s)
        file: "/home/dusko/.fonts/0xProto-Regular.otf"(s)

To get detailed information about a font; for example, about 0xProto font:

% fc-list -v 0xProto | wc -l
      88
 
% fc-list -v 0xProto | grep postscriptname
        postscriptname: "0xProto-Regular"(s)
        postscriptname: "0xProto-Regular"(s)

% fc-match
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"
 
% fc-list | grep "NotoSans-Regular.ttf"
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto/NotoSans-Regular.ttf: Noto Sans:style=Regular

% find /usr/local/share/fonts -iname '*Noto*' | wc -l
     366

% find /usr/local/share/fonts -iname '*Noto*' 
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto/NotoSerifDisplay-BlackItalic.ttf
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto/NotoSerifCJKsc-ExtraLight.otf
---- snip ----
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto/NotoSans-BoldItalic.ttf
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto/NotoSans-SemiCondensedExtraLightItalic.ttf
/usr/local/share/fonts/noto/NotoSans-BlackItalic.ttf

Additional Fontconfig Tools

% man fonts-conf

See also:

fc-cache(1) fc-list(1) fc-match(1) fc-pattern(1) fc-query(1) fc-scan(1) fc-cat(1)

Glossary / Acronyms / Terms [TODO]

  • (Often used interchangeably) X.Org Server - X - X11 - Xorg: X.Org Foundation implementation of the X Window System (X11) display server
    • So, X.Org Server (X): implementation of the X Window System (X11) display server
      • X Window System = X11
      • X11 = protocol, the core protocol
      • X.Org Server = X

References:

  • X Window System - Wikipedia:

    X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.

  • Windowing system - Wikipedia:

    The X Window System was first released in 1984 and is historically the main windowing system for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The core protocol has been at version 11 since 1987, hence it commonly being known as “X11”. The current reference implementation of the X11 protocol is the X.Org Server, which provides the display server and some ancillary components.

    [ . . . ]

    The main component of any windowing system is usually called the display server, although alternative terms such as window server are also in use.

  • Xorg - Arch Wiki

    X.Org Server - commonly referred to as simply X - is the X.Org Foundation implementation of the X Window System (X11) display server, and it is the most popular display server among Linux users.

    For the alternative and successor, see Wayland.

  • XLFD = X Logical Font Description

  • Type 1, TrueType, OpenType/CFF = scalable fonts

FAQ

How do misc-fixed fonts look like?

Answer: On my FreeBSD 14 system:

% xfontsel -print

For fndry select misc. For fmly select fixed. Click ‘quit’.

Output:

-misc-fixed-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*%

% xlsfonts | wc -l
   23234

% xlsfonts "*-misc-fixed*" | wc -l
     970

On my system, there are 970 fonts in the misc-fixed collection of fonts.

Now, you can dig deeper, and start filtering out, until you find a font or a set of fonts that you like.

% xlsfonts "*-misc-fixed*" | less

% xlsfonts "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal*" | wc -l
     454

% xlsfonts "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal*" | less

% xlsfonts "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20*" | wc -l
      34
 
% xlsfonts "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20*" | less

% xfontsel -pattern "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1"

Returned “6 names match”.

Then with xfd(1):

% xfd -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1"

Similarly:

% xfd -fn "*-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-*"

will display:

-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO8859-1

and

% xfd -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1"

will display:

-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1

% xterm -fn "-Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--20-200-75-75-C-100-ISO10646-1"

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