Re: How to get traditional Chinese characters working under Gnome + Debian?

[Matthew Exon <72360005 exon dyndns org>]

Andrei Badea wrote:
> I know nothing about Chinese fonts, so I can't help you with that. 
> However, if you want to learn about how fonts are configured in GTK2 
> programs, have a look at Fontconfig documentation (www.fontconfig.org). 
> This is the program that maps names like "Sans" or "Bitstream Vera Sans" 
> to real fonts. Its config files are in /etc/fonts. Don't modify 
> fonts.conf, only make changes to local.conf.
>
> In the default local.conf installed by the fontconfig package in Debian 
> there is a commented section that you have to uncomment in order for 
> fontconfig to "see" bitmapped fonts. Have a look there, maybe 
> uncommenting this will help you with the Chinese characters.

Aha!  It was that simple.  I didn't even have to modify any config files 
by hand, there's a debconf question asking exactly that, just 
dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig.  Thanks!

The fontconfig documentation is interesting, although my actual problem 
was pretty simple.  I did manage to find a couple of general "fonts 
under unix" FAQs online, but none of them talk about fontserver or GTK :-(

Cheers,
Mat