14 Aug 2024

Fonts fonts fonts ..and fonts. On VoidLinux while using DWM window manager and a desire to use that fancy icons, emoji, glyphs

published: August 14, 2024, updated: August 16, 2024; 14:07

So what’s the plan

To use and see symbols, icons, glyphs like 󰋊 or this  or this 📶 specific fonts have to be installed. What should be a trivial task from first view sometimes can be very tramedous task and time consuming job.

Basic install of VoidLinux does not iclude much of fonts for fancy symbols display. While installing X server /Xorg/ it is recommended to install x fonts metapackage

However this is not enough for rendering and displaying emoji and other specific symbols.

To have max symbols, icons, emoji rendering and displaying coverage do

install fonts

1
sudo xbps-install -S xorg-fonts noto-fonts-emoji noto-fonts-ttf noto-fonts-ttf-extra noto-fonts-ttf-variable noto-fonts-cjk nerd-fonts dejavu-fonts-ttf

set-up fonts config file

sudo nvim /etc/fonts/local.conf # nvim editor (change to vim, or nano, or whatever)

add the following configs to

/etc/fonts/local.conf*

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "urn:fontconfig:fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <!-- Apply text rasterization, hinting, and anti-aliasing -->
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="antialias" mode="assign">
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
    <edit name="hinting" mode="assign">
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
    <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
      <const>rgb</const>
    </edit>
    <edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
      <const>hintslight</const>
    </edit>
    <edit name="lcdfilter" mode="assign">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <!-- Configure default fonts & fallback fonts -->
  <!-- Replace fonts with preferred fonts -->
  <!-- Noto Emoji allows for emojis to render in all apps including the terminal, remove if not needed  -->
    <alias>
    <family>serif</family>
    <prefer>
     <family>Noto Serif</family>
     <family>Noto Color Emoji</family>
     <family>Noto Emoji</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>sans-serif</family>
    <prefer>
     <family>Noto Sans</family>
     <family>Noto Color Emoji</family>
     <family>Noto Emoji</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>sans</family>
    <prefer>
     <family>Noto Sans</family>
     <family>Noto Color Emoji</family>
     <family>Noto Emoji</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>monospace</family>
    <prefer>
     <family>JetBrainsMono</family>
     <family>Noto Mono</family>
     <family>Noto Color Emoji</family>
     <family>Noto Emoji</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
  <alias>
    <family>mono</family>
    <prefer>
     <family>JetBrainsMono</family>
     <family>Noto Mono</family>
     <family>Noto Color Emoji</family>
     <family>Noto Emoji</family>
    </prefer>
  </alias>
</fontconfig>

Install Xorg’s tool `xrdb`

to setup some X fonts’ specific configs in .Xresources file.

sudo xbps-install -S xorg-xrdb

add the following to ~/.Xresources

Xft.autohint: 0
Xft.lcdfilter:  lcddefault
Xft.hintstyle:  hintfull
Xft.hinting: 1
Xft.antialias: 1
Xft.rgba: rgb

and run command xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources.

Create required symbolic links for text rendering effects to work:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/10-hinting-slight.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

Refresh the font cache files by running the following command.

sudo fc-cache -fv && fc-cache -fv

Add font definition to DWM’s config file (`config.h` or `config.def.h`)

static const char *fonts[]          = { "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Mono:size=10:antialias=true:autohint=true" };
static const char dmenufont[]       = "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Mono:size=10";

Now rebuild and reinstall DWM

make && sudo make install

Update X start configs to get fonts for Xord

add to .xinitrc

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

# prepend fonts' paths to know by X
xset +fp $HOME/.local/share/fonts
xset fp rehash

Reboot.

Problems

Disk size

The Font JetBrainsMono of Nerd Font group is located in package nerd-fonts. The installation of this package will consume ~ 11G of disk. Too much for just having nice symbols and icons. So there should be options to:

use different symbols, icons, emoji, which is included in another font’s package
install separatelly just required font like JetBrainsMono and not to install whole nerd-fonts group of fonts
use/find any other fonts group alternative which encompasses glyphs for rendering required symbols and icons