Red Hat Summit Red Hat SummitSupportConsoleDevelopersStart a trialContact

6.3. Working with legacy fonts

The X server looks for a font server specified in the FontPath directive within the Files section of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file.
The X server connects to the xfs server on a specified port to acquire font information. For this reason, the xfs service must be running for X to start.

6.3.1. Adding Fonts to xfs
Copy link

To add fonts to the core X font subsystem (xfs), follow these steps:
  1. If it does not already exist, create a directory called /usr/share/fonts/local/ using the following command as root: 
    mkdir /usr/share/fonts/local/
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    If creating the /usr/share/fonts/local/ directory is necessary, it must be added to the xfs path using the following command as root: 
    chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/local/
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Copy the new font file into the /usr/share/fonts/local/ directory
  3. Update the font information by issuing the following command as root: 
    ttmkfdir -d /usr/share/fonts/local/ -o /usr/share/fonts/local/fonts.scale
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  4. Reload the xfs font server configuration file by issuing the following command as root: 
    service xfs reload
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Back to top
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Learn

Try, buy, & sell

Communities

About Red Hat Documentation

We help Red Hat users innovate and achieve their goals with our products and services with content they can trust. Explore our recent updates.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. For more details, see the Red Hat Blog.

About Red Hat

We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge.

Theme

© 2025 Red Hat